Deterioration (USA) - Paranoia & Violence (2024)
Payback Time This album starts off with a minute-long audio soundbite from the 1987 film, Predator , in which a group of machine gun toting commandos level a Guatemalan rainforest. One particular character exhausts the entire ammo reserve of a handheld M134 Minigun nicknamed, "Old Painless." I can't think of a better way to describe Deterioration —loud, incessant, brutal, devastating. Deterioration is the band that you recommend to your annoying normy coworker when the subject of music comes up and you don'…
TSUBO (Italy) - Capitale Umano (2023)
Teoria Del Complotto My first introduction to Italy's TSUBO was a blind purchase of the band's 2012 release, . ..Con Cognizione Di Causa , through Give Praise Records' old distro. I didn't have any real expectations other than the promise of some form of a grindcore experience. With its stringent vocals and wailing guitars, the twenty track death-grind release made for a sufficient entry to both the band's then fledgling discography and to the T -section of my alphabetized CD media shelf. It would be anothe…
Woundflower (USA) - Misery (2024)
Salt The Wound Before I can tell you the story of Woundflower and their debut full-length, Misery , we will have to first talk about the band Bled To Submission . Blog alumns and friends to The House of Grindcore , Nashville's Bled To Submission released their third and final major release, Bury Them in the Graves They Dug For You , on Nerve Altar Records back in 2021. After a musical career spanning some five years, the band ultimately chose to bury themselves in the grave that they dug by calling it quits soon after the rel…
Disintegration (USA) - Carbon Shadow (2022)
Graphite-Grind Disintegration are a death-grind band from deep in the heart of GWAR country, Richmond, Virginia, that play a type of grindcore that filters thrash and black metal through a crusty grindcore filter. They weaponize aggressive riffing and heavy blasting in the form of their 2022 full-length, Carbon Shadow . Since the debut of their demo in 2016, Disintegration have been fine-tuning and polishing their said metaphorical munitions, resulting in a very Assück sounding style of metallic grindcore. Although, Disinte…
Shitstorm (USA) - Only In Dade (2023)
Holy Shit Did anyone have a new Shitstorm release on their 2023 bingo card, because I sure as shit didn't. Shitstorm's Only In Dade came out of nowhere and absolutely destroyed. The album is a staticky, grime drenched onslaught of completely pissed off grindcore vengeance. Shitsorm have their grindcore roots in hardcore and thus have an unflourished purity to their grind. They don't have time to fuck around, just bludgeon. The guitar riffs slide in and out of chord changes and different levels of distortion tone li…
Closet Witch (USA) - Chiaroscuro (2023)
The Blast Witch Project I first saw Closet Witch in Dallas in 2018 and it was one of the most impressive live performances I had ever seen. What I bore witness to was a demonstration of unconditioned power and catharsis. On that tour the band was promoting their first full-length record and now, five years later, Closet Witch have followed it up with their second LP, Chiaroscuro —an appropriately titled album because Chiaroscuro is high art. Closet Witch's latest is a concoction of grindcore, chaotic hardcore and screamo …
Real Life Ugly (Texas, USA) - Manifestación (2023)
U-G-L-Y You Ain't Got No Alibi What's more exciting and appealing than professional wrestling? From Mexico's lucha libre to Canada's Hart Foundation, the cowbell kickoff of clean kayfabe competitive combat is for some the height of entertainment. It's a modern amalgam of clashing gladiators in a crowded coliseum and a Greek tragedy holding spectacle in an encircled amphitheater, brought to life in your home's living room like an in-ring telenovela. The conflict between larger than life baby-faces and sinister hee…
Barren (Belgium) - I (2022)
I Against I I was never expecting much when starting this blog. I didn't even know enough to know what to expect, honestly. Return to the House of Grindcore is a labor of love that is way more trouble than it's worth. In the despondent words of Norman Bates, "A hobby's supposed to pass the time, not fill it." The blog was intended to fill the void of grindcore review blogs that had cease to be and to review releases in an obnoxiously specific way that only interested me. Hopefully someone would find it useful or, …
Chadhel (Quebec) - Failure//Downfall (2022)
Chadhel's Model You needn't think I'm crazy —plenty of others have worst tastes in music than grindcore. Why don't you laugh at those black metal kids who killed each other over lo-fi fantasy club clout? If I don't like that damned metal, it's my own business; and we're here to discuss grindcore anyhow. Well, if you must hear it, the last I heard from Chadhel was in April of 2021 after the split 10 inch between them and Assiduous Assault. No, I don't know what's become of Assiduous Assault. …
Extreme Decay (Indonesia) - Downfall Of A God Complex (2022)
Rotten to the Core For as long as I can remember, I have always wanted to find a dead body. A human corpse left out to the elements—taut, tanned and broken over the jagged caliche. A half buried human face with the dirt compacted in the nostrils, mouth agape and pouring with stinking earth, limbs floating around in a conspicuous shallow grave. The classic alabaster heap of the impossibly surreal mannequin lying in direct contrast to everything you could ever comprehend. The skeletal remains of an obscured burnt offering in decaying ill-fitt…
Horornisdiphonevalle (Japan)/SlothPhantomMoth (Sweden) - Split CD (2021)
Throughout the process of typing up this review, my girlfriend often lies beside me, perpetually cold and curled up under our ironical yet cozy Nuestra Señora de Guadalupe fleece couch blanket while binging through season after season of the 2007 hit sitcom, The Big Bang Theory as part of her current nightly ritual. Her latest observation seems to be that I exhibit several similar qualities to the character of Sheldon Cooper — a stubborn, socially inept, obsessive-compulsive, chronically phobic, intellectual who finds security in routi…
Vile Species (Greece) - Demo (2022)
Untitled Straight outta the cradle of Western civilization, Athens' Vile Species have recently been creating a catalog of crusty, old school grind with an output of five releases in just the past two years. Most notably with Sacramento's Human Obliteration whose 2020 LP, Definition of Insanity , had a somewhat conspicuous release. As a band, Vile Species have been cultivating a sound that combines the unembellished riffing of crust punk with the heavy blasting and keened edge of Scandinavian grindcore. The band can shift …
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