Agents of Abhorrence- Relief

For some time now, Australia’s Agents of Abhorrence has been a part of that post-Discordance Axis pack of grindcore bands extrapolating the game-changing New Jersey band’s melodic innovations into strange new forms. Now, for the first time, with new album Relief, Agents of Abhorrence expands past that and other influences into its own skin, and to say the results are the best thing the band has ever released only scratches the surface.

The somewhat tinny, hyperactive band of former releases has reshaped its component parts into a full, mature force. Blastbeats abound, as always, but rough, earthy warmth pervades this new material. Relief has a warmer, more naturalistic, fuzz-toned sound in contrast with the brittle, icy quality of 2007’s Earth.Water.Sun. Space is a commodity in limited supply here, but the buzzing tone that fills it between notes sounds surprisingly great.

Since its last release, 2010’s split with Roskopp, vocalist Grant Johns left the band, to be replaced by Roskopp bassist/vocalist Jacob Winkler. Winkler’s voice is a gruff, ground-level affair, but he still manages the occasional texture change and acrobatic maneuver. At first, the absence of Johns’ higher-register screaming takes some adjustment, but the vicious mids and lows delivered by Winkler suit the new material so well that Johns is barely missed.

Ben Andrews’ riffs swarm and divebomb, occasionally embracing the odd groove. On the second portion of Relief’s title track, he even give in to some pulsing, deliciously Rob Marton-esque repetition. “Bad News” and “The Mistake Again Made, the Proof Again Put,” both from the album’s back half, also find Andrews mining Marton’s circular Discordance Axis playing style, the latter containing some of Andrews’ best writing of the album.

Max Kohane turns in a tight, crisp, exhilarating drum performance. As with many of grindcore’s drumming greats, his playing is adept enough that he could just as easily find work with a jazz ensemble as he could a hardcore outfit. While I’ll admit that his is a name that hasn’t come up in my past conversations about grind drumming, the blastbeat Max Roach act he pulls here means that is likely to change.

Relief is a dirty, fiery blast of a record that catapults Agents of Abhorrence from another great Australian grindcore band to one of the country’s best. The album’s success puts AoA second only to The Kill in terms of furious, tight, grindcore for grindcore’s sake blasting, and those bands, along with thedowngoing and a growing handful of others, continue to prove that Australia is a major player in the ongoing global arms race for louder and faster that is grindcore. 2013’s album-of-the-year candidates are numerous (see Cloud Rat, Sick/Tired and Cara Neir’s albums from this year for starters, as well as the looming possibility of Gridlink dropping Longhena before the year is out) but if this album doesn’t at least make your list, you haven’t been paying attention.


Relief was released by 625 Thrashcore and Psychocontrol, and you can still find vinyl copies from A389, Ebullition, Interpunk, and others.

Grinding Halt / Suffering Quota- Split 7"

Grindcore's Internet-era globalization, while maligned for disintegrating the thrill and discovery of organic networking and tape-trading within the punk scene, brings the unquestionable advantage of leveling the playing field for bands outside of stereotypically accepted scene loci like North America and the UK. A non-US or UK band no longer has to be attached to a prominent label (or any at all) to gain international exposure, which, scene politics aside, is nothing but a great thing.

All this to say, then, that had the Internet never existed, I would never have heard this pair of Netherlands bands (or seen their satisfyingly colorful 7" cover art). Grinding Halt and Suffering Quota feel like children of that globalization, both in the musical styles they integrate into their sounds and because of the still-amazing fact that I'm listening to their music hundreds of miles away from where it was made, not thanks to label plugs or tape trading or letter-writing, but simply because of the magical musical equalizer that is Bandcamp and services like it.

Grinding Halt’s side opens with the lacerating “Kaaskopen,” a shrill-vocaled, heavy-riffing piece of grinding fastcore that morphs into a rich, Southern sludge metal after a mid-song bass break. Initially unassuming, repeated plays reveal the sophistication it takes to blend the whole thing together so effortlessly. While these sorts of structure aren’t new, the track feels organic, and each section would work as well on its own as well as it does as a part of a greater whole.

The standout track from either side, it is also a blueprint track for the duality in Grinding Halt’s approach. Their other two contributions (“Knuffelverzet” and “Bedrog”) are predominately in a groovy, Southern sludge style à la Thou, with a hardcore punk accent to the vocals and instrumental performances.  The punk hybridization is also present in the tracks’ lengths, as only one exceeds 2 minutes (and then just barely), and their shrewd songwriting gives the tracks a sense of being well-honed song nuggets rather than stunted throwaways.

“Bedrog” is pulled straight from the closing song handbook, as it is heavy, driving and feels like a recapitulation of the side’s previous sounds. With groovy Southern progressions and impassioned, frantic shouting, it shows a glint of that mournful, end-of-the-world quality found in many of the best album-ending songs.

Grinding Halt’s approach is upon first listen unusual, as the switch from grindcore to sludge metal (but never, on this release, back to grindcore again) seems to defy conventional wisdom. However, after some time spent with the songs, the progression feels natural, and a well-curated continuation in a similar direction could yield exciting results.

A batch of thick, mosh-ready grindcore songs from Suffering Quota occupies the B side. “No Lust For Life” is a beatdown masquerading as a thrashing hardcore song, and the singer sounds like he’s screaming the title in your face, with veins popping out on his neck and spittle flying from his mouth. Once the song reaches its stride near the 50 second mark, the whole affair picks up considerably, abandoning the mosh for the blast until a repeat of the opening “chorus” finally melts into a closing vocal sample.

“Goodbye Self Awareness” is both the shortest and the tightest track among their offerings here. It recalls, while considerably less outré, Total Fucking Destruction’s most straightforward and punishing moments, or a genetic experiment between Noisear and PLF. Its barreling pace and frantic vocals mark it as a standout among Suffering Quota's tracks and a worthwhile starting point for those put off by the sometimes mid-paced, meaty sound of the band's other songs. 

These are songs that sound manufactured for the pit veteran, not the BPM fiend, and those looking for innovation or alienating speed would do better searching elsewhere. However, those seeking well-produced, tough-sounding grindcore for those “I want to break stuff” days that we all have will find a lot to like about Suffering Quota's andrenalized death-thrash grind.

The transition from one side to the other is neither perfect nor overly jarring, and this certainly isn't the most unlikely pair of bands to share a split. The contrast between the two bands' production styles (Suffering Quota's sound is fuller and better-produced) makes the switch from one to the other noticeable, but in a few seconds the change is a non-issue.

Overall, this 7" is a fair introduction to two Dutch bands previously unknown to me. Neither band's output here has made me rush out and fill myself in on their back catalogs (I am, however, eyeing this pretty hard), but it has most definitely put the pair of them on my radar.

Stream or download Grinding Halt and Suffering Quota's Split 7" below or purchase the 7" from Give Praise in the US or Parade of Spectres in the UK.

The Kill- Shower of Bricks EP

A favorite old saw of mine is the ability of certain albums to evoke different things from a listener, like a particular mood, aesthetic, image or idea. Some feel cinematic, and bring to mind cyberpunk or horror films, while others recall surrealism or political uprising. Shower of Bricks, the latest EP from the Australian grind madmen in The Kill, recalls something more basic than any of these examples: this record sounds like pure violence.

After a four-second The Exorcist sample that serves as an intro, the band smashes out of the gate with "Trolley Pushing Zombies," a frothing minute of grind that embodies the speed, brevity and sheer relentlessness that I love about this band, so much so that it's probably going to be the song I use to introduce my friends to The Kill from now on.

The EP's eponymous track offers some of the few slower seconds on the entire MCD (and it's still murderously fast, if that tells you anything) in the brief sustained strum that begins the song and a few loping riffs that serve to keep the pacing interesting. It also happens to be one of the catchier songs, as I found myself recognizing it, especially the scream-shout vocals and circular riff pattern that occurs around the mid section, after a few blind listens.

Two songs, "Pub Brawl" and "Utterly Unimportant," appeared previously on the band's Blast Beat'n the Shit Outta PBS radio session album, though the improved production and volume on this record let the song shine in a way the other versions couldn't. While the drumstick count-off on the radio performance of "Pub Brawl" suggests that a click track may have played a part in the improvement, it doesn't change the fact that the songs are at their best in this crisp, higher quality form.

The one-two punch of a dramatic descending riff followed by a chugging stop-start riff, both slightly reminiscent of Discordance Axis, make "Passed Out" a perfect closer, with a brief runtime that means you'll be lunging to restart the album the second it ends.

The songs on this EP merge the "all fast parts" ethos Jon Chang perfected with Gridlink with the aural horror that Repulsion and Pig Destroyer ooze, underscored by an unpretentious attitude that classic grind fans will instantly gravitate toward. This is unquestionably the band's best effort to date, and while little has changed fundamentally in their snarling, blood-soaked style, it finds them at an unprecedented level of musical focus that would be a top-five year-end shoo-in if carried across an LP.

If my review of The Soundtrack to Your Violence a while ago didn't have you rushing to check out their material, let this be your mulligan, because The Kill is still among the best pure grindcore bands operating today and more than deserves your attention.


Listen:

"Trolley Pushing Zombies" (Bandcamp)

"Shower of Bricks" (Soundcloud)

Sete Star Sept- Revision of Noise

“Our youth has gone to the ends of the earth to die in the silence of the truth. And where, I ask you, can a man escape to, when he hasn’t enough madness left inside him? The truth is an endless death agony. The truth is death. You have to choose: death or lies. I’ve never been able to kill myself.” – Louis-Ferdinand Céline, Journey to the End of the Night (1932)

If any of you are at all familiar with my tastes by now, you know that if you but say the words “noisy,” “Japanese” and “grindcore” in the same sentence, I’ll start drooling quicker than Pavlov's pooches at a handbell concert. Therefore, it’s no surprise that as soon as I finished sampling my first Sete Star Sept track and reading some background info, I needed this record.

The band is a Tokyo-based two-piece currently composed of bassist/vocalist Kae and drummer Kiyasu whose sound rests squarely at the mid-point between noise and grindcore. This record serves as the sort of noisegrind gateway drug that Arsedestroyer and Gore Beyond Necropsy were so adept at producing, along with several helpings of traditionalist Japanese grindcore like Carcass Grinder and Gate.

Second track and album standout “Deadly Smile” (found on their Myspace, for those interested in a first listen along with their review) is an excellent introduction to their Japanese-grind-on-an-Arsedestroyer-binge sound, a thirty-six second ball of blasts and shrill, frantic screams akin to mainlining an energy drink in the midst of a bar fight.

“Pearl” opens with killer distorted vocals and proceeds to blast its way into your heart, until it makes the decision to sit on the floor a moment and have itself a breakdown. Thus refreshed, it hops to its feet and proceeds to blast away, except for a cool little riff section that unsurprisingly gets augmented by blasts to close the song.

At times, the noise seems to overpower even the band’s playing ability, certain songs seeming to fall to pieces as you listen. On “Killer,” the song fragments into a mess of feedback-drenched guitar, drum snaps and screaming that re-forms as a Dunwich Horror-on-a-stroll breakdown, gains momentum and rushes back to blurring speeds until it is again smashed apart by its own sheer velocity, this time succumbing to the force and crumbling into a closing half-breakdown.

The fact that the band constantly sound on the verge of losing everything is what makes this release so exciting, however, and although the frenetic blast/slow sustained part/frenetic blast formula can get, well, formulaic, it never gets anywhere close to boring.

While it’s probably not going to convince Rotten Sound/modern Napalm Death straight-arrows that a little noise in your grind never hurt anyone, this release is a perfect introduction to the dirtier, noisier side of grindcore without any of the over-experimental noise-and-yelling fuckery that derails some sloppier noisegrind offerings. It might not make much effort to redefine the genre as we know it (as some 2011 grind releases did), but it does make 15 damned decent arguments for the fact that it's not going anywhere any time soon, either.

Newer Sete Star Sept releases include Gero Me, a 50-track noisefuck with a beautifully grotesque Shintaro Kago manga panel as its cover, and a split with Satan (guess Big Red’s not too busy these days to help out the little guy). Upcoming material includes a split with Penis Geyser. The band have recently been playing shows with the likes of Wormrot, ACxDC and Bloody Phoenix, although a February 12th Japan show seems to be the only current date on the horizon.

Grindcore/Extreme Music Radio Show 8/25/11

As promised, here are the links to my grindcore/extreme music radio show (mostly grind and some doomy/black metal stuff thrown in for good measure) from midnight to 2 on Wednesday night. I'd originally uploaded them in .wav, but considering the fact that those uploads ended up totaling around a gig, I decided I had to re-up them as 320 mp3s instead. This will be my last metal show of the summer, and one of the last radio shows I'll do until I (I hope) come back and do a few shows over winter break, so I hope you folks like it. There's a couple of slip-ups that I apologize for in advance (like the part where the hard drive I'm using doesn't recognize the Noisear song I'm going to play and I have to play station liners for like 2 minutes until we fix it) but I had a whole lot of fun doing it.

pt. 1

pt. 2

Gridlink- Orphan

“He played the most dreadful music that could possibly be imagined by the most fiendish mind of man. He deafened us with the sheer fabulous ugliness of his music. He made our flesh crawl and bristle with his noise. Mum’s face began to twitch. I kept jerking. A strange smell, as of a rotting corpse, or of a great animal in the throes of death, rose from the music, and occupied the room. It was incredible.”
-Ben Okri, The Famished Road (1991)

“At the moment the face is horribly distorted, especially the eyes. The whole body and the features of the face work with convulsive jerks and contortions. A terrible, indescribable scream that is unlike anything else breaks from the sufferer. In that scream everything human seems obliterated and it is impossible, or very difficult, for an observer to realise and admit that it is the man himself screaming. It seems indeed as though it were some one else screaming from within the man.”
-Fyodor Dostoyevsky, The Idiot (1869)


Had this been any other year, the fight for top grindcore album come December would’ve been a bare-knuckled brawl. A nearly unprecedented number of the genre’s modern purveyors released excellent LPs this cycle, and the Iron Chef-level of accomplishment on the best of them would’ve meant a hair’s breadth difference between the first, second and third place position, had Jon Chang’s elite grindcore commando squad not loosed this 13-minute, precision-guided salvo broadside through their hulls, rendering further discussion unnecessary.

Ever since my frenzied first listen some 4 months ago, I’ve known that 2011’s album of the year had already been chosen for me. Of course, there was at first some denial on my part; surely some other album could come in the next 8 months that would shake this grind masterpiece from its throne, relegating it to second or even third place? Yet as the weeks wore on, my enthusiasm for Orphan just never seemed to wane, and its unshakeable supremacy was further cemented as weeks and then months of listening allowed me to unpack more and more of the intricacies that compose this compact musical dynamo of a record.

Orphan seems essentially designed to ramp up every aspect that made 2006’s Amber Grey a masterpiece in its own right. Takafumi Matsubara, also guitar mastermind of Japan’s underrated technical grind powerhouse Mortalized, has upped the band’s guitar composition in both complexity as well as catchiness (an aspect oft-overlooked in grindcore songwriting,) crafting songs that perfectly marry the technical with the memorable instead of jumping off the deep end of wankiness as many “mathcore” and technical metal groups tend to do.

In response to the upgrade in songwriting, the other aspects of the band have been beefed up as well. Former Human Remains members Steve Procopio (who acted as touring guitarist for Discordance Axis when Rob Marton was out of commission) and bassist Teddy Patterson do an excellent job of filling out the band’s sound, adding punch without sacrificing an ounce of rawness or energy. Blastbeat wunderkind Bryan Fajardo returns to the drum stool with his chops cranked up to 11, and even he’s had to make some changes to cope with Matsubara’s frenetic fretwork. Formerly the king of the single-pedal blastbeat, he had to learn to play double-kick just to keep up with the relentless bpms this record cranks out. Even vocalist Jon Chang shows increased versatility this go-round, exhibiting his full range of techniques from shrieks to deathgrowls and to several surprising gradations in-between.

Ever a font of vitriol, from his work in Discordance Axis to the present, Chang has upped the anger, pain and frustration to a fever pitch on this release. Vocally, it’s rarely more visible than in the black metal-inflected, tortured-wolverine-spewing-acid delivery on “Scopedog,” one of many anime-indebted narratives to be found on the record (the song itself named after a character from the long-running VOTOMS series.) He also employs a clearer, almost barking technique for some lines, making lyrics like the title track’s “Somewhere in between we’ve lost ourselves” surprisingly understandable right from the first listen.

His penchant for violent revenge returns in full force on this record, perhaps most evident on standout closing track “The Last Red Shoulder” (named after a VOTOMS OVA and another of many anime references on the record): “I want to hear you scream until it becomes the flat drone of tinnitus / Until the ground is Pollacked with your offal and blood.” However, the lyrics boast more than just extreme music’s requisite gore; they also exhibit a pain and fragility more common to heart-on-sleeve singer-songwriters than grindcore lifers, exhibited in these lyrics from the title track: “I never wanted this distance / This distance between myself and the rest of the world / Unanswered voicemails[,] the cursor hangs anxiously / Waiting for words that never come.”

Lyrically, Orphan also boasts some of Chang’s most accomplished writing to date. Aforementioned album closer “The Last Red Shoulder” boasts particularly evocative, imagery-laden storytelling that weaves a violent, emotionally intense war narrative. While clearly influenced by the mech combat of some of his favorite anime, these lyrics, like much of his work, seem to carry a deeply personal undercurrent. These lines from the song’s opening genuinely gave me chills when I first cracked open the gatefold for a peek at the lyrics sheet: “Rotor wash stirs the desert / Only a shadow of myself / Covered in the grey powder that once was people / Gore spattered chassis are matted by acid rain.”

The record offers a surprise treat for grindcore purists in the fantastic “Cargo 200,” a blistering 7 seconds that will go down in history as one of the finest micro-songs ever written, in grind or any other genre. More than just primal therapy, the song proves that there’s still life in a trick that’s become something of a genre cliché roughly two-and-a-half decades after “You Suffer” blipped its way into our music-consuming consciousness.

While I could go on, dissecting all of the layers that make the album great track-by-track, it seems futile, especially after the excellent coverage it's received within the blogsphere and the surprisingly positive reception it’s received from some corners of the mainstream metal press. Additionally, considering the track record of Chang and the rest of the band, if you were going to pick this record up you most likely had the good sense to do it months ago, and anything I would have to say either for or against it would be fairly useless.

Instead, consider this more a love song to a record I've grown extremely attached to and should’ve reviewed months ago, as well as perhaps a re-introduction to me as a blogger, since now that I’ve completed my degree and am settling into post-college life I plan to start publishing reviews of grindcore records (as well as some from other genres) at least weekly. Midnight Wednesday evening I'll be airing a grindcore radio show from my alma mater's radio station, which you can stream here when the time comes, and which I'll also be posting a mediafire link for either early Thursday morning or later during the day on Thursday or Friday if you can't listen live.