Fading Trail (Finland) - Count The Days (2021)
"And they beheld the vicious spectacle that loomed before them, draped in the finest of carnage, twisted in the foulest of horrors. Flesh made augur. Atrocities made omen. And they knew then that this land was barren of all clemencies. Another glorious day in God's country." -A nonymous Much like many European cities, Helsinki is a modern capital founded atop the ashes of war, great fires and the bones of over a thousand victims of the Black Death during the plague of 1710 that decimated some two-thirds of the then p…
Noisy Neighbor (Texas, USA) Self-titled EP (2018)
Covet Thy Neighbor's Noise After my divorce my first apartment was a one bedroom on the ground floor. The apartment itself wasn't bad. It was newly renovated and spacious for the price. My first full day there was raddled by a gentleman hammering in the apartment above me. Hammering something. Constantly. This continued most weekdays. On the weekends his wife did what I could only audibly deduce as step aerobics. At 6 AM. Without fail. Every Saturday and Sunday. It wasn't that bad in the grand scheme of things, but fuck lady…
Negative Bias (USA) - Speedcore Summer! (2021)
The idea of "fun" extreme music can be a contentious topic. It brings to mind years of parodic side projects and experimental fusion bands, or themed bands like Crom and Attack of the Mad Axeman . But Negative Bias, a North Carolina trio composed of members of Priapus and Pizzahifive, may have cracked the formula with this sunny, speedy debut release. The band deals in trebly, lightspeed punk heavily influenced by fastcore and thrashing hardcore. This album was recorded live in the studio, and that energy is what propels the relea…
Nak'ay (USA) - Closed Doors / Open Veins (2021)
Closed Doors / Open Veins is the explosive, pummeling first full length from 13-year grindcore veterans Nak'ay. The band sprints through 17 songs in less than 15 minutes, but the impression is that of focus and ferocity rather than slightness or brevity. Nothing is wasted here, and there's precious little in the way of filler. What's on display across this record is a heavy, hyperfast strain of traditionalist grindcore that will appeal to fans of Suffering Mind, Insect Warfare and P.L.F. It's hard to convey how laser focused…
Kaliya (Texas, USA) Self-titled (2015)
Nagaz Wit Attitudes I actually had to do some leg work to obtain this album. Even though Kaliya hail from my home of DFW, I some how missed show after show. Even a show in which my band was suppose to open for them was cancelled due to overbooking by the venue. Eventually I caught up with the band opening for Aborted on a predominately metal bill. Their merch table was largely ignored, save for the over flow of metal-heads from neighboring tables who used the Kaliya spread as a place to set their drinks down. I think I was the only one…
Chadhel (Quebec)/Assiduous Assault (USA) - Split 10" (2021)
Call of the Chadhel "There was a mighty eddying and foaming in the noisome brine, and as the steam mounted higher and higher the brave Norwegian drove his vessel head on against the pursuing jelly which rose above the unclean froth like the stern of a daemon galleon. The awful squid-head with writhing feelers came nearly up to the bowsprit of the sturdy yacht, but Johansen drove on relentlessly. There was a bursting as of an exploding bladder, a slushy nastiness as of a cloven sunfish, a stench as of a thousand opened graves, and a soun…
Noisem (USA) - Blossoming Decay (2015)
Late Bloomers Okay, so I don't want to spend too much time on this release since the hype around this album was already pretty high and at this point [2015] I could cover my eyes and hit a review of this album with a rock. (Of course the metaphor here being that the Internet is a field or some wooded area and that the metal sites and their reviews are tangible things laying around that I could chuck a rock at. Good? Moving on.) Noisem made a big splash with the release of their 2013 debut album Agony Defined on A839 Rec…
Brown Acid and Werewolves on Wheels: The Endless Bummer of the '60s and '70s
The late 1960s and early 1970s in America were the site of massive, well-trodden cultural changes. The idealistic promise of the " Summer of Love " in 1967 and the years following proved more difficult to realize in practice. While the broad message was "love and peace," this didn't mean a culture-wide push for equality in terms of gender, race, sexual orientation and gender identity, or even an agreement on politics on any meaningful scale. This led to ideological and creative splintering, spawning a number of social…
Nervous Impulse (Canada) - Time To Panic (2015)
Start Panicking Nervous Impulse is a Canadian death-grind band that I was completely unaware of until the band's second album, Time To Panic . This record is a sonic assault of grind blasts, shredding death metal guitar and some real unbridled vocal mayhem. There's an undercurrent of maybe some deathcore, not too dissimilar to bands like Despised Icon with some hints of later Cannibal Corpse . Especially in the guitar tone and the breakdowns. The drumming on Time To Panic is what initially sold me on Nerv…
UNSU (France) - K.I.A.I. (2014)
The Soufflé of the Samari UNSU is a grinding four piece from France and their 2014 album K.I.A.I (Kill Icons And Idiots) is a ripper. I didn't realize this album was released in 2014 until I stumbled on to the band's website and saw that they were hyping up the album's release in December [2014] . (I didn't even know bands still had websites.) Had I known this, K.I.A.I. would've been high on my "best of 2014" list. Like, top 5 at least. UNSU slays the majority of the bands on that list. UNSU …
White Eyes (Germany) - Beastmode (2009)
I don't know why anyone but me would remember so I might as well note that I raved about German (somewhat experimental) grind outfit White Eyes around the time they released their only full-length effort, Beastmode (as far as I know, the only other release that followed was their 2012 split with perhaps the highest peak of Australian grindcore, i.e. The Kill) . Believe it or not, I stumbled upon them like I did with countless great bands, tracing the footprints of Discordance Axis in the collective web of blastbeats, as I often did, to gr…
Bandit (USA) - Warsaw (2018)
Philly's Bandit condensed a whole bunch of shifty, riff-heavy powerviolence to about four minutes on their 2018 EP titled Warsaw, leaving cadaverous footprints in the shapes of top-tier grind bands such as Pig Destroyer and even Discordance Axis (see also the 2017 EP, Self Inflicted , for riffs of worship) in their wake. Most importantly, whatever they lose for the speed demons among their listeners with the occasional chugalong, they quite successfully make up for it in the elaborated riff department and tight song-structuring. Put the …
Kandarivas (Japan) - Grind Surgical Shrine (2019)
To "preserve" traditions, many present culture as it was for one moment, frozen in amber. Kandarivas instead opts for a more practical approach, melding the traditional with the modern and preserving through innovation. They take traditional Japanese taiko drumming and insert it into a framework of experimental grindcore in a way that respects both ideas equally. The band is a trio, with Tomoki on guitar and lead vocals, Onobone playing the drum kit and Kaiki on the taiko drums. The taiko take the place both on stage and in the mix o…
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