Debellatio of Man(Defeatist, Sixth Extinction 2010)

It's not everyday that you are greeted with an animalistic screams of agony and despair, whilst instrumental harbingers of war drum up a bellicose herald of the next large extinction event. That is unless you listen to New Yorks finest: Defeatist. Whether or not they take their name from one of Lenin's more absurd propositions or the more general use is a non-issue, all you have to appreciate is that these guys are hell bent beyond belief.

Screams, screams and even more screams, in fact so many screams you might just find yourself believing that you are in fact a fixture in hell. However in the background of this constant heinous shrieking a pyrrhic battle rages between strings and percussion, with the battlefield being your ear drum. Both are executed with such great awe and professionally, whilst maintaining almost legendary consistency, which has resulted in even the best of us faltering and momentarily falsely attributing it to an illusion of noise, because this is one great boisterous racket. Boxing in Noise, Pain, Frustration, Death and anything else equally negative, Defeatist  release this all as a incendiary cluster bomb of violent noise detonated over a web of extra strength Grindcore. Brief interludes of silence or near silence are merely a representation of the delay between pressing the trigger and the when they let all hell breaks loose, in all its twisted glory.
This album is an unforgiving and menacing skull fuck of Noise mutated Grind, time-signatures are ignored as Defeatist run rampant on a biocide spree fuelled by both blood lust and a general odium to mankind. Take part in the demise of man, and get your copy now!

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Must.Make.Watches! and Kill People (Watchmaker, Kill.Fucking.Everyone, 2003)

Watchmaker is angry Music for angry people, it is the sort of music that is fueled by hatred and vomits forth even more hatred. Lurking in the depths of Boston, this jigsaw of thrash, black, death metals and Grindcore have really captured the essence of extreme metal, and pushed it further into the dark end of the musical spectrum.

To those of you who have seen Event Horizon (if you haven't check it out ASAP!, warning spoiler alert), there is one important part of the plot they left out: the Event Horizon brought back from hell this album.
Before I even touch on the canorous side of this release let us take a little verbal appreciation of the album art itself. The design looks impressive, the skulls on the guns are what you notice straight away, and they look good, and after staring for a little longer you notice that those circles are in fact pentagrams, from what you thought might of been a death metal or Grindcore release has subtly incorporated a stereotypical aesthetic feature from black metal. Then you notice the cloud on the top right, and you think to yourself "hang on is that a cloud or is that someone who has smudged blood?" couple that with the barbed wire, and you have an album art which is fully immersive, and already sets the scene for the odium of audio catalepsy that will take place.

 I personally hard to pinpoint an accurate description, on this album, and even though I have done a lot looking on the interwebs, and it seems to have confused me even more than I was to start off with. So I will try to detangle this mess, however I am still very much an amateur so please forgive my short comings. I would classify this as  the spirit and essence of Reign in Blood, however with more energy. Alongside, thrashers Slayer, there is also fellow thrashers Kreator element in the drumming and guitaring, more 90's than 80's Kreator.
 Infused with thrash metal, is a raw black metal atmosphere in the form of vocals and occasional riffing, and lastly ,but not least a fundamental musical architecture of death metal. Somehow or other all this create some furious and ferocious Grindcore.

On the Internet this release has been assigned by fans as a really heavy release, and let me tell you the words do no justice in describing how true it really is. The Percussion is really in the foreground, and along with the screaming are the main battering ram to the ear drums. Juxtaposing the intensely fast and well co-ordinated drumming, with the long high pitched screaming adds to this hellbent clash of man and music. To those not accustomed to Metal, or the less audio observant it may sound like a incomprehensible mess, but in the background is quite impressive riffing  and shredding, much akin to thrash metal and some older death metal. At some parts the strings to step up to the challenge and enter the foreground, and leave with as much grace as they entered. This I personally can't decipher the husky black metal styled vocals except for the occasional "I will kill you!", put all these instrumental and vocal elements together and you get yourself one hateful release. The production value is not the best, but nor is it shit, however I think it really adds another element to this monstrosity of a release.

This album is an absolute ingenious machination, full of demonic and infernal music, this release goes well beyond a good release. By pooling together the very essence in each sub-genre and still making the music sound as good as their source, is a mammoth of a task, yet Watchmaker succeed at doing so, and pull it off to a perfect Magnum Opus. A well deserved pat on the back.
Grind Out
Rating 90/100

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Side Note: Sorry for the long wait between posting and general decline in quality and length of posts, education takes priority at the moment. Over the next 4 weeks my posting will be infrequent, however once they are gone, I will be back in full swing. Also I will hopefully be bringing another author to this Blog in the next few weeks, he is rooted in NWOBHM, but does like some of his Grindcore and Death metal. Hopefully his English Degree will compliment his passion for music well, and that he will be a good addition to this Blog. 

Cheers for reading

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Grindvirus Alert! May result in Compressed Innards!

The Difference between the virtual world and the real world is that those who frequent my blog and don't know me in person believe me to 100% English, well this is a falsehood I am infact 50% English and 50% Polish. The Grindcore scene in the U.K is quite big, not big enough to be mainstream but big enough to have a recognisable following, most be people know of Carcass and Napalm Death, even if they are unaware of what Grindcore is. However in Poland Grindcore seems to be very much a minority within a minority, you have the occasional metal fan, and then out of a possible 100 metal fans you might get one person who likes Grindcore. This is really a crying shame because Poland does put out some good grindcore and metal for that matter (I am a big Vader Fan). And this review will be about the Epitome of the Polish Grindcore scene(No reference to fellow Polski Grinders Epitome intended)

Grind Virus is contagious, there is no doubt about it, once you hear it, you just can't stop playing it, then you go forth and recommend it to your friends who in turn repeat the cycle. The Grindcore Epidemic takes form. These Grinders date back to 1994, thus not old enough to be in the Old School, nor new enough to be  in the New School, to my knowledge there is no term for this middle strata so I will use the term "Mid-School"  to describe these sort of groups. In my opinion they often are the Cadre of Grindcore, they take the best elements from the innovators and pioneers and mould it into something else, and they lack the impurities that have tainted the good name of Grindcore (i.e Deathcore).

Unlike some early grindcore and hardcore bands who strive to achieve a sound which was faster, louder and heavier than anything else, squash bowels have opted not to follow this route. The core element they do possess, is something I can't really put a word on it is sort of like a slow paced groove that still retains the most pure grindcore, it is catchy as hell. They are a sort of early Gore-Grinding Carcass incarnate which has opted instead of going on melodeath or death 'n' roll route, to refine their sound to a alternate better approach. For those of you who have read my review on Jig-AI here, you may be aware of my general loathing of most Gore-Grind bands. However Squash bowels try not to sound the most sickest and demented sound on the planet, they try to stay true to the essence of music and just write stuff the best they can.

The sound possess that underlying raw very heavy metal feel to it, everything they do is nothing new or unique to the genre put what they amalgamate together is just amazing. For a Grindcore release, the song lengths are quite long the shortest being 1minute 28 seconds, but the songs tend to be about 2 minutes in length.  At no point the songs are felt that they have over extended themselves or repeat themselves, each song is crafted uniquely and barrages your ear drums with the finest Grindcore.
The vocals are your typical 2 types one growly and one screamy, add in your clotting bass line, your earth shaking drums and a hell of lot of shredding and you got yourself one hell of a catchy tune.

I often think that most reviewers and listeners tend to forget the importance of production value, talent is talent without a doubt and regardless of production value you can tell whether something is amazing or shit. However I like to see production value as a metaphorical amp,by being good you amplify how good or bad the release is, by having minimal production value you leave it to the more unprejudiced person to unearth the hidden treasures. The production quality in this is most definitely praiseworthy it really does give this release an additional amazing edge. On a side note I do love some bands particularly in death metal that sort goes well with that amateur minimal production value, check out some Cannabis Corpse, recorded in the blokes Kitchen.
It is a tear up between Squash Bowells, Wormrot and Napalm Death as to my favourite album of 2009, I am trying to remove all personal national bias I may possess, and even so it is a tough one to call. In short this has to be the most catchy Grindcore release I know, it aint fast nor brutal but it still is in the finest Grindcore you can treat your ear drums to.
Grind Out
Rating: 96/100

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