Metal Riot

In a time when the world (or at least America) seems to have gone full throttle casting a shadow of STUPID across the face of the globe, it is reassuring to know a metal institution like mighty UK grind legends Napalm Death are as unstoppable and resonant as ever. Coded Smears And More Uncommon Slurs is a compilation of sold out split EP and Japanese bonus tracks, but it feels as potent and needed as any of their skull crushing political diatribes aka full lengths.

From the mid tempo barrage of “It Failed To Explode” from the Utilitarian sessions to the cinematic experimental unease of the almost Fantomas sounding  “Oxygen Of Duplicity” fittingly from a split with the grunge godfathers The Melvins to the 2:27 perfection of “Critical Gluttonous Mass” from the lazy consumer skewering  Apex Predator – Easy Meat time frame, any of these could have held down a place on the records they didn’t make it on and been just fine. There is literally no quality difference, it all rages. Barney, Shane and the boys bleed for this stuff and deliver 100% like nobody’s business – but you probably knew that already if you are reading it. “Aim Without An Aim” is especially unhinged, Barney’s vocals sounding downright demonic even for him.

Napalm Death, you know what you get. Classic sounding riffs that nonetheless push to further the grind into the future, scorched Earth rage channeled through meaningful progressive topics, a contempt for apathy, pulverizing rhythm section madness, dissonance and destruction.

As bassist Shane Embury recently said in regards to the compilation ,”…We have written so many tracks and the years go by so quick that you forget just how fucking great these songs are!” 

I gotta agree with the guy. There is not a dud in the bunch, despite the piecemeal approach of a compilation. 2CD, 2LP’s of top shelf grind and extreme metal. You’ve even got a mean Despair cover, a Sacrilege cover and some other goodies. Plus you get titles that are pretty much as metal sounding as you can get this side of Carcass. I mean “Omnipresent Knife In Your Back”? C’mon! That’s rad.

Cheers to the band for remaining in the fight and on the front lines of extreme music and activism for so long. People need to see that kind of passion as a rebuttal to apathy. Such respect for this band.

Hardcore idols Sick Of It All have posted a clip of the band performing a stone cold classic “My Life” from Blood, Sweat and No Tears in Tokyo with Barney from fuckin’ Napalm Death on vocals! The crowd is of course loving it. Good times and just what the doctor ordered to cheer you up after a week of deaths in the metal scene.

Expect a new record on the horizon from extreme art grinders Pig Destroyer.

The celebrated band has entered the studio to begin recording their 6th studio album and follow-up to 2012’s Book Burner. The yet-to-be-named full-length is being recorded at the band’s own Visceral Sound Studios in Bethesda, MD and recorded/produced by guitarist Scott Hull. The album is expected to be released Summer 2018 via Relapse Records.

Additionally, PIG DESTROYER has announced a few exclusive concerts for the winter. The band will tour the weekend of December 7-9 in California with a tremendously intense line up featuring Despise You, Necrot & labelmates Call of the Void!

PIG DESTROYER kicks off 2018 with two East Coast shows in New Jersey and in Long Island at Obnoxious Noise Fest. The band has also been confirmed for Maryland Deathfest 2018 on May 26 in Baltimore, MD. Stay tuned for further tour details in the near future.

Itinerary BELOW.

I was feeling pretty glum after the news Trap Them is calling it a day, but it seems – much like in Clone Wars when Anakin went to that weird ass planet Mortis and sort of accidentally balanced the force by screwing up royally – that the grind force that unites us all in hellbound moshery has decided the scales must be balanced with good news today as well for the genre. Yes, obviously I am getting around to telling you the wonderful skull punting news that Corrupt Mortal Altar, one of the more insane UK extreme bands, just dropped a new album for FREE download called Eunoia.  Pick it up HERE!

I have listened to it all the way few twice already and it is a serious rage fest. The pummeling “Engineering Consent”, more sort of rocking Letters Organize meets She Rides reminiscent “Night Chant” and the deadly barrage of “The All Consuming Self” (which would find the band in good company with some of Throatruiner’s current roster on a bill), are all impressive. The whole thing really burns and it is very cool of the band to take the risk of name your pricing it. Obviously the music is the most important part of this, but remember to try and support the band also so artists can keep making their work a priority.

I don’t have any of the production info but this thing sounds amazing and will sear your orifices shut. Hails.

A lot of people know Brutal Truth, perhaps the heaviest grind band that ever snarled and raged beneath a mushroom cloud of bong smoke, for their Sounds of the Animal Kingdom album the best. It simply comes down to the cover art being so fucking bad ass (though Need To Control has a killer front cover as well) and the fact that Relapse seemed to really give it a good push, arguably one of the records that helped kick start the post-early days ascendancy of the label along with some other classics like Neurosis’ Through Silver In Blood or DEP’s Calculating Infinity, for example. As extreme and interesting as those bands were, Brutal Truth are simply not palatable in basically any way for most people, even open minded ones. You have to be all about the grind, sludge and chaos with a smear of politics and loathing for the inanity of humanity.

For me, this was the first album that really made me ‘get’ grindcore and was a huge mental puzzle piece in moving me towards the most extreme stuff in my collection being Fear Factory and some Death or Sepultura to fully embracing Napalm Death, checking out Repulsion, yadda yadda. I still think Kevin Sharp has the most fearsome bellow and it does more for me than a lot of even lower gurgle death metal vocals like, say, Nile or Pathology (not to take anything away from them). Cannibal Corpse may have had the extreme record art and some fierce growls, but Kevin Sharp always sounded like he had just half eaten someone and was yelling at them DURING the cannibalistic act.

Animal Kingdom is a perfect storm capturing in desperation in our collective, obsessive and narcissistic society. It shoves reality in your face and laughs at the idea of civilization, laying bare our cruelty as the most destructive force in the food chain.

The band had done some great stuff in the past with Colin Richardson or Steve McAllister who had credits with Crisis and Corrosion Of Conformity, among others. Animal Kingdom found the group getting one of their most vivid and intense sounds yet with the help of Billy Anderson. This record was able to match some of the social commentary of an early track like “Anti-Homophobe” that was so promising with some of the crushing heaviness of Need To Control, refining all sides of the band’s strengths into a magnificent onslaught on “Jemenez Cricket” or “Postulate Then Liberate.” And there is hardly even much you can say about the Lilker and Hoak rhythm section insanity besides ,“Holy fuck!”

For guitarist Brent McCarthy, this was his swan song with the group, as high point of an exit as you are likely to find in metal (though BT made great albums after him in the years to come as well). I can remember staring at the graves and skyline montage on the back artwork and getting freaked out at the push of mortality and the oppressive stupidity of my fellow man, something all too prominent in the news again these days like almost never before. Sept. 23rd marks twenty years of this smashterpiece and everything else is STILL not loud or fast enough. Light one up and give the old girl a spin if you haven’t in awhile (or even if you have).

Photograph by Mika Aalto

While the rock and metal world reeled last week from the death of the iconic Chris Cornell, thankfully this week is starting off with a reminder that metal, punk and rock will not only never die but has many disciples still here to help carry the torch forward. From UFOMAMMUT’s clobbering new “Warsheep”, to Davey Suicide’s gutter glammy “No Angel”  to Silverstein’s screamo charged “Retrograde”, let’s celebrate that rock still comes in many styles. That said, if you want to kick off your week hard may we recommend you take a big fat Finnish kick in the crotch from grindcore heroes Rotten Sound this Monday. “Thrashmonger” is here and gone in just over a minute but will open your eyes like Uma getting some of that Pulp Fiction adrenaline.

Check it out below and keep the faith.

Agoraphobic Nosebleed somehow went from being an insider’s dream concept to a full fledged legacy band (in certain circles). The closest thing we still have left to anything as vitriol fueled as Brutal Truth, yet with the industrialized power/edge of Pig Destroyer/and the relevance of Drugs of Faith to boot.

The ARC EP finds the band in top form, a sleaz-i-fied riff fest two minutes into “Not A Daughter” the first and foremost real display of a burlier and at times pretty much southern rock sound for the band. You read that right. There are some real barn burner’s thrown in amidst the slog.

The EP- harsh vocals from Kat on full blast – is a true headbanger’s oasis of skull crunching pit worthy riffs that can appeal to fans of stoner, grind, fringe hardcore and even slow death metal at times. It is awesome the band continue to fearlessly evolve, just as Black Flag once did, for example. That’s one surefire way to stay relevant, unless you make a Cold Lake (which I secretly like).

Even the record art is more of a fine art mutation than some of the shockier stuff at bedbathsaltsandbeyond.spreadshirt.com.

“Not A Daughter” ends with a horn thrower of a riff worthy of Alabama Thunderpussy’s much missed Staring At The Divine-era, albeit a lot more evil. It’ll remind you Richard lives in Virginia (I think he still does, at least).

Anyway, this is the sickest fuckin’ band and you know it (or oughta). They make me want to barf out of my eyes. It’s pure bottled charge and pay off after payoff. “Deathbed” is a grungier dirge than the majority of recent melvins and us ugly as the S/T Eyehategod stuff, complete with low male death vocals and synthetic drum poundage. “Gnaw” has some stuff so knuckle dragging in it that it almost sounds like Xibalba was an industrial crust band. Fuck yeah!!!

I wish this record was more than three gloriously hellbent songs and was at least six. It’s a monster anyway and nonetheless will exhaust you with awesome adrenaline rush wall of metal power. But in a flaming heap afterwards you nonetheless want more material, a liberal bloodlusting for good art that will thaw any frozen corpse’s heart in a guitarbang of volume, aesthetic and road.

Pre-order HERE. Right now.