BAND OF THE DAY: YOUWRETCH

While the post-metal/crust collision is doubtless beginning to irritate the purists from both camps, fearing some sort of deluge of people whose beards aren't nearly as full and mature as their own, Minneapolis quintet Youwretch thread stitches flagellant self-loathing and bleakness together with the gently glowing embers of post-metal slowburns.

Formed late 2009, their debut EP is downloadable for nowt or purchasable from friendly not-for-profit collective Forward! Records (US/Canada only), so get on that and listen to these dudes take some seriously rocking riffs out for a walk.

REVIEW: FEASTEM 'WORLD DELIRIUM' (OBSCENE)

Sweden may have led the (dis)charge for furious, high octane grindcore in the first half of the 21st Century, but with many of the great beasts laid low – Nasum and Bruce Banner are no more, and Sayyadina and Gadget are barely active – ambitious young princes are carving up the kingdom with distilled greatness of their forebears like the fall of the Angevin Empire. Tellingly among the contenders for this throne, it's the multi-national Afgrund – a European Union of Italian, Swedish and Finnish members, blasting hard amid stop-start guitar dynamics and white hot Wolfpack riffs – who seem the closest to parking their behinds on the velvet, a nod towards the long term shift from Swedish dominance to Finnish echoed by Rotten Sound's relentless march into the heart of not just grinders, but extreme metallers of all stripes. It's pretty exciting, and it's more than reminiscent of the crossover appeal achieved by the late, sainted Nasum.

If Afgrund are the heirs apparent of Swedish grind, then Feastem are the crown princes of Finland, sharing a member in guitarist Olli Nokkala, second album 'World Delirium' (stream this monster) is an exhilarating frenzy of whirlwind drumming, chainsaw riffing and breathless, chest-pounding calls to arms. This album drags you along by the balls over a carpet of broken glass and rock salt for 27 floor-punching minutes, and the abrupt change from a world of pain to the still silence of one without when that last minute is ticked off is so disorientating you'll momentarily worry that you're having a heart attack.

BAND OF THE DAY: OLD WOUNDS

Old people have been banging on and endlessly on about hardcore not being what it used to be since the dawn of the genre, and every now and then, especially when some new fad grips everyone by the testicles, you start to believe them. New Jersey quartet Old Wounds run their fingers over a whole heap of things – sludge, chaotic mathcore, Integrity chug, dissonant Cursed-style crust – like a perfect date, seducing you with her digits.

Most of all though, they're furious and they're dirty, and the five minutes of their three track demo (downloadable here) throws you to the wall like a sudden earthquake. There's another record on the way - get stoked because Old Wounds make hardcore alright again, not that it ever wasn't.

REVIEW: DEATH DEALERS 'FILES OF ATROCITY' (MCR)

Not exactly a pressing new release tugging on your sleeve and demanding your attention, the debut album from Death Dealers, released late last year, marks the last recorded output of the absolutely incredible Phil Vane, and for that reason alone it's worth visiting. With both Phil and Dean Jones on their trademarked dual vocal assault, and a line-up made up of assorted current and former members of Extreme Noise Terror, and Dean's straight-up crust mob, the resurrected pre-ENT rabble rousers Raw Noise, plus a former member of Swedish incendiaries Anti-Cimex and Driller Killer, the output is neither a surprise in style, nor in quality.

Buzzsaw crust riffs with an underlying glimmer of melody – that hummable, super-slick Swedish sound that Anti-Cimex nailed and the likes of Disfear, Skitsystem, Wolfbrigade and Victims offer up to the world, backed by the most instantly recognisable pipes in grindcore. While Raw Noise 2.0 was fixated on crust circa whatever 198-dot squat party originally spawned Raw Noise 1.0, Death Dealers are very much a product of more contemporary influences, represented by a cover of 'As the Machine Gun Rivers Flow' by the late Mieszko Talarczyk's swaggering Genocide SS – a brilliant move full circle as Nasum were shameless, open pilferers of Raw Noise riffs in their infancy.

BAND OF THE DAY: HELLSHOCK

It's something of a proud tradition for crusties to declare their punkness with every ounce of their being and then run right over to the much maligned musical Great Satan that is metal, and fill their combat boots, all the while trumpeting their unimpeachable punk status over and over again.

Thank your magic made-up deity of choice that they have, though. While few have really shifted from the crossover template instigated by the great Amebix and codified by the likes of Hellbastard, Deviated Instinct and Axegrinder, Hellshock are all but a good hot bubblebath away from actually being a death metal band. Relying on some seriously mid-paced Obituary-style riffs and a good dose of early Bolt Thrower, broken with the odd ray of glistening Wolfbrigade sunshine (one is ex of From Ashes Rise, so that explains that), on their third and most recent full-length, 2009's 'They Wait For You Still', Portland, Oregon's Hellshock could easily pass as one of those scowling primordial death revivalists, like Obliteration or Bastard Priest or whatever else is currently on the Vice website, if they combed their hair, flicked all the studs off their jacket and dropped the communing-with-nature instrumentals.

Which, now it's been said, is a very good case for why they shouldn't.

REVIEW: ANAL CUNT 'FUCKIN' A' (PATAC)

There's nothing sadder than watching impressionable idiots crawl all over Seth Putnam on the week's leading social networking platform (whatever that winds up being), inviting him to their town to teach the “faggot ass emo kids about Anal Cunt” or suggesting future songtitles that have all the witless sophistication of a proposition on a night bus. His career has gotten to the point where nobody takes him even remotely seriously and any attempt he makes to shake these people off is interpreted as more of his faggotloljew gimmickry. He even slipped into a coma to try and put them off the scent and yet here they are, endlessly bleating on about records he lost interest in five minutes after they were made, soaking up everything he says like profane little sponges and spitting it right back him. Seth Putnam's life is now just one endless chorus of meatheads chirping FAGGOT FAGGOT FAGGOT FAGGOT like homophobic cuckoos.

Having established that if he were to put a cherry on a turd, AxCx fans would still eat it and endless propagate its alleged brilliance, the one-time noisegrind pioneer has cooked up the biggest, squelchiest turd he can in order to make his loyal following the butt of the joke. Not a bad record at all, 'Fuckin' A' is kinda unremarkable and irrelevant in the grand scheme of your musical life – a weakly produced, slurry of cod-rock warbling and hummable riffs that you can rest assured his diehard fans, basically a sort of chubby grindcore jugallo type creature, will derive no genuine pleasure from. Instead they'll just hoot amongst themselves about how funny it was, like your school friends used to do after coming back from watching NoFX or Bowling for Soup. Everyone else will gain some small joy from the actual music, and a great deal of mirth witnessing people pretend to be into it as Seth finally achieves the seemingly impossible by stringing along his own deeply jaded fanbase.

PHIL VANE R.I.P

I'm absolutely gutted to report that Phil Vane, one half of Extreme Noise Terror's core duo since forming in 1985, has died.

I had the pleasure of chatting to Phil a few times, he introduced me to loads of old  Japanese hardcore bands, kept me in the loop with his and Dean's various projects, and was generally an all-round solid gentleman. Totally disinterested in all the bullshit and willywaving that is generally required to get ahead in the music industry, he was, as far as I'm concerned, every bit the devoted, hardworking and uncompromisingly ethical old punk that you'd expect from someone who made hardcore his life.

Much sincere love, respect and sympathy goes out to his friends and bandmates.

BAND OF THE DAY: RETOX

Justin Pearson's fuck-you swagger, abrasive, violated cartoon character screech and legion of adoring, hipster fans might rub you up the wrong way, hypothetical hater, but his services towards keeping punk, grindcore, powerviolence and assorted noisy subgenres in a constant state of revolutionary turmoil can't be denied, from The Locust and Some Girls, to Holy Molar, All Leather and Headwound City.

Formed some point in late 2010, JP is rejoined by Locust drum berserker and Cattle Decapitation founding member Gabe Serbian, and newcomers to the Pearson canon Thor Dickey and Michael Crain, Retox are a return to grindier material, shrieking, juddering, chugging shamelessly and blastbeaten. Their debut EP is available for free download, and at eight tracks in just over seven minutes  spits riff-guided rage at society's self-centred dark heart. The mission statement claims, “Retox is that reaction to stagnant and boring cultures, as well as the countercultures that have slipped into a sea of pointlessness,” but it could be argued, were you so inclined, that the band themselves are a regression for the core duo, to The Locust's pre-synthesiser powerviolence beginnings and therefore stagnant themselves.

They're really good though, so shut up.

BLOODSHED FESTIVAL ALREADY LOOKS AWESOME

Bloodshed 2010 was an absolute beast, and 2011 is already looking equally spoogeworthy. Taking place October 14-15 at the Eindhoven Dynamo (a hour by plane, or a few hours drive for lazy Brits) the bands confirmed so far are Midland blackened crusties After the Last Sky, Scottish primordial death metallers Bonesaw, the legendary Bastard Noise, riff-heavy Sicilian deathsters Heamophagus, Texan grinders PLF, furious tour dogs Wormrot, Finnish crusties Unkind and more more more.

This festival is the perfect bookend to your year, and will ease the Obscene Extreme comedown no end.

BAND OF THE DAY: OFF!

Anyone who likes hardcore should have a whole corner of their heart sectioned off for the love of original Black Flag vocalist and head of the raucous Circle Jerks, Keith Morris.

Forming the LA quartet Off! in 2009 with guitarist Dimitri Coats, bassist Steven Shane McDonald of misfit punks Redd Kross and drummer Mario Rubalcaba of the much hyped Hot Snakes and Rocket from the Crypt, the comparisons to early Black Flag's stripped down irreverence go beyond the humming basslines, coppery guitar tones and the snarlalong discontent, to the Raymond Pettibone artwork and the mere fact their first CD release is a collection of four EPs, a bizarre distinction given only one of the four was actually released separately as a 7”, but who are you to judge KEITH-FUCKING-MORRIS?

You can get the the whole thing as a 7" box set from Vice Records along with a download code, so that's clearly the way to go.

REVIEW: SELF DECONSTRUCTION 'SELF-TITLED' (GRINDCORE KARAOKE)

With the sort of fuzzy non-production that suggests they snuck into the studio and recorded their five minutes on Unseen Terror's clock while the band had ducked out to catch the latest episode of 'Garfield and Friends', Japanese quartet Self Deconstruction profess to play 'free-style grind', which may mean they just make it up as they go along. If that's the case, it explains away both their prolific output (this is their second demo, which you can download the shit out of, and there's a debut LP on the way too) given the Tokyo four-piece formed a year ago this month, and that crusty, rawness that takes in glimpses of juddering technical death metal and throat-rending, groove-flecked powerviolence.

BAND OF THE DAY: BAZÖOKA

Here's an interesting moral dilemma if you're concerned about where your funds end up – 'Toxic Warriors', the debut from savage Sodom-ites Bazöoka, is on Metal Inquisition Records, the apolitical wing of No Colours Records, represented by the thoroughly odious Rob 'Lord Wind' Darken, the laughable Level 18 grand wizard of NSBM. As much as anything can be apolitical in a world in which all art or activity is political to some degree, this Taiwanese thrashpack could be held up as an example of how he leaves his prejudices in his armour, or he could just not have a problem with subhuman monkey people provided they stay in their subhuman monkey countries. For something rooted in ignorance, racism is surprisingly complicated stuff.

None of which has any baring on Taipei's furious, super-DIY Bazöoka, beyond wondering what possessed them to shack up with a label whose reputation will inevitably overshadow their music, which focused primarily on the nastier end of Teutonic shreddery, with some of the poorly produced posturing of Venom - like Toxic Holocaust with actual band members. Regrettably, though active since 2005, there's only one disc out and they seem to have entered "hybernation", leaving more tales of nuclear fall-out and b-movie horror untold.

It's difficult to picture Darken losing his shit to crossover thrash of this swaggering ilk, but perhaps he was lured in through the back door by the sentiments of SOD's 'Speak English or Die'.

REVIEW: FATUM 'SKVERNA' (GASMASK)

Apocalyptic metallic crust primitivism, Moscow's filth-caked Fatum have been channelling Amebix and Hellhammer since 2008, pushing their assault well of the heads of most crust thrash revivalists with some driving buzzsaw riffs, cavernous reverb, tar-thick grooves and the occasional atmospheric interludes. One of those bands who seem more than happy with the increasingly cringeworthy 'metalpunk' brand, 'Skverna' is more than just a gutsy rampage through the same old over-referenced territory - it's oppressive and mean, and it's only drinking music if what you're drinking is neat vodka, and you don't plan on ever stopping.

This is crust punk to wake up alone in a pool of vomit to, and despair.

INTERVIEW: KEVIN SHARP BEATS HIS CHEST WITH PRIMATE

“The problem that I have is that so many dumb people are successful, it really does hurt my feelings. Maybe some day I'll be a rock star,” he posits in a voice of mock-childlike optimism, “what do you think? Is that possible?”

For a veteran foot soldier of the music industry, albeit one long gone rogue at the dark heart of his own jungle, Brutal Truth's garrulous frontman Kevin Sharp has a view of the world that a chimes in with his listeners. Brutal Truth is music made for crumpled cards at the bottom of the pack, by crumpled cards at the bottom of the pack.

His most recent release though, isn't Brutal Truth. It's Primate, a star-studded crust punk outfit (featuring one of Mastodon) that on paper at least, tries to pretend that Venomous Concept, a star-studded crust punk outfit (featuring half of Napalm Death and half of Brutal Truth) doesn't exist. Musically though, there's quite a demarcation – Venomous Concept are slick, Swedish-style crust in the high-octane, firework-spitting mold of Disfear, while Primate's debut EP, 'Draw Back a Stump', is lo-fi bottom of the pack gutter punk with a hint of 'My War'-era Black Flag.

“It's totally different,” he agrees. “I can take apart the subtleties, the lyrics and even phrasing and intonation vary from band to band. It takes about a song each for the gear to shift when you're knee deep in recording and over analysing. It's a totally different ballgame with Brutal Truth which is like quantum physics – I did some shows with Brutal Truth a coupla weeks ago. It's a bit of a switch and you kinda have to shift gears and become a different person, so to speak. If you compare it to something like a different role, because there're so many things that are different in my mind. Firstly with this one, it's more true to the Southern heritage.”

Though Brutal Truth will be forever thought of as from New York, Kevin hails from South of the Mason-Dixie Line, has ties to the NOLA scene (it was a Eyehategod tribute that brought BT back from the dead, lest we forget), and he's spent the last chunk of his life in Atlanta, Georgia turning his beard grey with the help of a beautiful family. Very much a local endevour compared to the globetrotting aspirations of Brutal Truth and Venomous Concept, there's a endearing sense of a gang of family men sneaking out to bowl or for a round of golf, and if the core trio weren't weather-beaten punk rockers, that's exactly what they'd be doing.

“I hooked up with one of the guitar players, Evan [Bartleson], who's a buddy of mine, he played in local bands – all of them pretty much,” recalls Kevin. “He's doing some commercial photography and I was working with him doing some set design stuff, that kinda thing, and we started talking about finding a way to put a band together. Just pub talk or whatever, it never leaves the bar napkin. He was in The Despised, a local punk/thrash band, and they broke up. I've known Dave [Whitworth, bass, also of The Despised] since I was a kid, we both got into punk like a million years ago when we were a lot slimmer - not really better looking but at least we were skinnier. Anyway, we hooked up with him and his drummer Shayne.”

It's the fan-spaffing presence of Mastodon's Bill Kelliher on guitar that'll bring in the rubes, though he wasn't in the band for their first faltering baby-steps, he contributed to the EP, and, of course, to the ease with which it was picked up and knocked out by Scion A/V (and for pre-order as a physical release) – the contentious car manufacturer turned promoter/label.

“Bill was wrapping up and Mastodon was going on a big break to see if they could get to like each other again. We did show before Bill joined, playing with Fang, Verbal Abuse and Capitalist Causalities, and he was out on tour. Bill was in Lethagy with [Brutal Truth guitarist] Erik Bourke, so we just kinda knew each other. We wrote a bunch of stuff and kinda submerged him in this weird demo project, it was really crude, and we put it up on Facebook, MySpace, whatever, Facespace. It came out really good considering we recorded them with sticks and rocks.”

Very much an advocate of rough-around-the-edges chaos, Primate is something of a break from the densely constructed assault of Brutal Truth. Not that Brutal Truth aren't chaotic, they're a precision bombing raid on a city, with burning trucks rolling off into the darkness and flak bursting in the sky, and Primate are a fierce one-on-one act of thuggery.

“People can over-analyse records into extinction, that comes with sitting at the ProTools console shifting things over. It should be a snapshot. Everything we recorded was recorded in three days, there was no goofing around, no going, 'What if we boo-boo-boo'. It took a little time to get the guitars right, but it was relatively quick and snapshottish.

“Some of the stuff that Brutal Truth is doing nowadays is pretty weird, man,” he admits, “and I have a tough time understanding it. That's the battle I have going on now – writing this Brutal Truth record.”

REVIEW: WINDS OF GENOCIDE 'ARRIVAL OF APOKALYPTIC ARMAGEDDON' (WITCHHAMMER)

So closed are the stylistic borders in this Fenriz-led metalpunk kingdom of Motörcharged crust/thrash where you can tell exactly what a band sound like based on the patches visible on their accumulated jackets, that all bands have to aim for is an Cold War-like escalation of redundant, slightly silly words. Celebrating armageddon, a extremely destructive conflict, which has taken place apocalyptic-, sorry, apokalyptically, meaning (unless the k throws things off) in the manner of the apocalypse, which is universal or widespread destruction, Durham death-dealing quartet Winds of Genocide (the destruction of a people) are the reigning champions of convoluted metalpunk pose-striking.

Shit, if translated into hieroglyphics, the whole title would probably just appear as single, spiked gauntlet.

You'll be delighted to know, the songtitles keep the pace up, and so does the music. With more of an old school proto-death metal vibe than is typical, not only was 'Arrival of Apokalyptic Armageddon' spiritually devised by an group of angry, beer-sozzled teens in 1985, it was spiritually performed by them too, with all the raw, fist-pumping primitivism, wind-tunnel production and Tom G URRRGHS! that you want from the genre. Roughly as creatively fertile a musical cul-de-sac as crossover thrash is, there's no shame in ticking boxes and as an undemanding, beer-aloft listen delivered without a single hint of irony, these six tracks serve their purpose.

COMMENT: CONDEMNATION AND CONFRONTATION ISN'T THE SAME AS CENSORSHIP

It's a tired all standby of the embattled far right that they refer to any challenge to their rhetoric as being 'censorship', from the BNP bleating about the liberal media bias on down to the angry little bigot called out on his Islamophobia, they all reach for it like a garter-belt six-shooter firing argument-settling full stops: “If you're so 'liberal', how come you're oppressing my right to free speech?”

No, nobody's challenging your right to free speech, people are merely exorcising their own by disagreeing with you. The militant left may have its fair share of foaming extremists, but their voices aren't always united and only the most ideologically regressive Antifa zealot would deny the right an opportunity to display how flimsy their pretence of civility really is.

The message of protest and counter-protest is simply, 'there is an opposing view and this is it'. While that's an argument as valid for the English Defence League or British National Party wishing to hold their knuckle-dragging Nuremberg knock-offs in the face of UAF or Hope Not Hate placard waving and petition signing, it's purely theatre for the vast majority of apolitical chaps and chapettes going about their lives, occasionally scanning the papers or rolling news for enlightenment as to this troubled orb's eventual destination. It's the duty of the left to make sure things which are inherently, morally repugnant don't go unchallenged, and allowed to make the headlines without riposte, and, unless you're getting socialism drastically wrong, and you are demanding censorship or worse, your message should be infinitely more appealing to that of the meatheaded right.

Obviously there's a delicate balance to be struck by presenting your view in such a way that it makes the news agenda and takes your message out into the world, and presenting it in such a way that the actual message disappears amid fire extinguishers being thrown from windows and equine royals being poked with sticks, as was the case with the student protests. While it might seem like a victory when Nick Griffin is rejected from Buckingham Palace or Geert Wilders is initially discouraged from showing his odious film in the House of Lords, there's a danger that someone otherwise ambivalent to their agenda will suddenly go, “Well... that's not really democracy, is it?” and out come the lazy  comparisons to Stalin, the tearful cries of 'censorship' and a realistic grab for the moral high ground.

Universities UK's report suggesting the academic world open its doors to potential controversy is a rare streak of reasoned moderation in a world of chest-beating extremes. University is often where young people temper their views on the world from the squishy little ball of preconceived notions and utter comprehension into something more substantial. If Nick Griffin, or for the sake of balance, whoever the current in vogue 'burn in hell, infidel scum' hate preacher is, are considering an appearance at your Student Union, then let them, set up your proverbial barricades inside the building, not outside. Tolerance and dialogue will always win out over factitious demagoguery in a country defined by its reluctance to 'make a fuss', but if said demagoguery isn't even given a chance to be aired, let alone challenged, the loudest message is one of meaningful silence, that the left are aggressive, the right are victims and basic liberties are being threatened by the former, not by the latter.

Debate is important, that way we can feel as though we've come to the conclusion that these people are cunts all by ourselves.

FUCK YEAH, FREE MUSIC FRIDAY!

It's my birthday tomorrow, and whilst it's delusional to claim today's lovely free downloads are in my honour - it makes a neat segue. First up, J Randall's endlessly spewing Grindcore Karaoke project is offering up the self-titled demo from Japanese 'freestyle grind' out Self-Destruction and 'Solitaire', a two track doom opus, from US doom trio Romero. Secondly, inane digi-grind/noise Texans A Beautiful Lotus have a shedload of stuff to wade through. Thirdly, but by no means least-ly, British thrashpack Seregon have a three-track EP clickable from here.

REVIEW: TOTAL FUCKING DESTRUCTION 'HATER' (KAOTOXIN/BONES BRIGADE)

Seemingly an age in the making, the long overdue third full-length from messianic drum prophet Rich Hoak and his anarchic Total Fucking Destruction sets off at a disarmingly frenzied pace. If their mission has been to pull the proverbial carpet out from under their conceited listener, then by leaping from the almost-Krishnacore devotional homilies of 2008's 'Peace, Love and Total Fucking Destruction', to the strutting rock-based assault of 'Hater', lapsing into grooves that Witchcraft would respectfully flick their lava lamp on to, TFD are keeping the room spinning drunkenly around their frantic grindcore, er, core.

Breaks in the assault feel like cooling down periods for the assembled musicians to assume the foetal position and gulp in lungfuls of cold night air before the hoarse exhortations and parables of a doomed future kick into being again. There's something of the chest-beating evangelist in Hoak's delivery, and it's a blessing for the world at large that Total Fucking Destruction and Brutal Truth keep him busy. If Rich Hoak hadn't found music, he'd be screaming at people in bus stations.

BAND OF THE DAY: ATOMCK

Having played almost every decent grind-related show, or designed the poster for it, within the blast radius of Wales and the Midlands, once-digital (bastard) noise trio Atomçk spliced together a storm of harsh electronica, brutal death/grind, sludge-like ditches of the dead and disorientating industrial oddness since inception in 2006. Fans of Rich Hoak's Peacemaker and Winters in Osaka, aside from being mostly art wankers, were stoked.

As prolific in output as you can only be if 40% of your material sounded like tiny sexy robots squeaking their tiny sexy robot mating calls at each other, and until fairly recently your drums are programmed, they've a deluge of old stuff to check out for free. So go do it. 

Since 2009 they've stopped being the cowardly meat-slaves of the machines, downgrading to straight up ball-crushing grind. Atomçk have a split 7” with Chicago mincecore outfit Paucities on the way and will be releasing an EP through J Randall's, he of upsetting metalheads on the internet and Agoraphobic Nosebleed fame, Grindcore Karaoke – which sort of means very little if you've released about a million things for download already, but the validation is nice, especially from the Ron Jeremy of sexy robot mating calls.

REVIEW: NERORGASMO 'NERORGASMO' (FOAD)

The tropes of Italian hardcore might not be as widely recognised as its Scandinavian counterparts, but if anything, the discerning characteristics are more potent. Italian may be a beautiful language when crooned by some sleazy dildo on the back of gondola, but when spat by Turin's Nerorgasmo (and indeed, the equally heinious Raw Power, Wretched and Negazione), it's absolutely venomous, and when joined with the sort of basement-dwelling drum fills and cold rock riffs that the Hellhammer generation would downtune to their infernal conclusion, it becomes absolutely evil.

A uber-limited boxset discography with eyeball-tickling silver print, a set of dice, a silver-print patch and a badge, this is a real labour of love for FOAD Records, and by far the most balls-out spectacular CD release they've involved themselves in – the lush digipack with the CD (and DVD live set) contains nine unreleased songs, the band's debut EP, remastered from the original tape and sounding far crisper than its weaksauce vinyl release and their 1993 full-length, remastered from the studio DAT.

In an era where black metallers are following Fenriz' lead and embracing the overplayed Discharge beat, they're overlooking the most hateful and misanthropic incarnation of punk, the most black metal scene to pre-date black metal – that of Nerorgasmo and their fellow travellers in the volatile, hateful frenzy of classic Italian hardcore.

BAND OF THE DAY: DEATH BEFORE WORK

Italy in 2011 bears a slight resemblance to the US in the '80s – an unpopular, aging plutocrat, a staunchly right wing government, a climate of boom matched by recession, squats, punks, Nazis and thrash metal. It's no surprise then, to hear the Nazi-baiting crossover thrash of Milan's utterly raucous Death Before Work simultaneously tick both boxes in the Good Crossover Guide with floor-punching hardcore aggression matched by high octane crossover shred.

Unafraid to throw in a few laughs while they chastise the scene for its failings, Death Before Work have a new album out April/May 2011 but their most recent disc, the 'Bomb the Vatican' Cdr can be downloaded with the band's blessing.

HURRAY FOR MORE FREE MUSIC

Frantic Japanophile hardcore outfit Masakari have uploaded their 'Eden Compromised' debut 7" EP (recently repressed by Halo of Flies) for download here, Sweden's Crawl Back In, the slab-dragging sludge mob featuring former Narcosis vocalist Peet have their entire discography puckered for a good, hard downloading and for a limit time you can grab that Kuntpuncher EP I was talking about earlier.

BAND OF THE DAY: BUBONIC BEAR

Another day, another grizzly two-piece. Philadelphia's brilliantly monkired kinetic punk duo Bubonic Bear trade in leg-twitchingly hypnotic rock 'n' roll riffage with a beardy Amphetamine Reptile fuzz and a sort of Taint-like, brand of upbeat sludge negativity. Like all good children of the 21st Century, Bubonic Bear have a fuck-ton of things to download for free, including their half of the recent 'Hulk Smash' split, last year's 'Half Length' EP, their 2009 split with Delaware punks Holy Dirt, and their 2008 demo.

MACHO INSECURITY ONLY HAVE A FEW SHIRTS, YOU SHOULD GET ONE

You probably don't wear enough white, unless your're either a doctor or a Klansman. So why not get one of these sexy Macho Insecurity t-shirts, super-limited to 20 and bundled with badges and a new CD of the the noisy quintet spinning around on a discordance axis? Get it here, now and be the envy of all free-thinking humans, win friends and become irresistible to the opposite sex, or the same sex, if that's what you want - we don't discriminate.

If you can't tell, I'm just trying to fill space so the picture doesn't look to awkward on the page surrounded by loads and loads and loads and loads and loads and loads of inconvenient white space. Please buy this shirt.

REVIEW: KUNTPUNCHER 'TAKE DRUGS AND EAT A KEBAB' (SELF-RELEASED)

How deeply unsettling is Gene Wilder in 'Willy Wonka's Chocolate Factory'? Like an otherworldly, amoral mad scientist, who manages to be simultaneous charming and terrifying. London digital-grind beast Kuntpuncher recognise this, flooding their debut EP 'Take Drugs and Eat a Kebab' with a churning, disorientating ocean of samples in which Wilder's nutty (centred) professor floats to the surface like your sweaty, dribbling uncle in a repressed abuse nightmare.

The preponderance of samples and throbbing, headache inducing electronics are so overwhelming, that the aural carnage they bookend takes a few spins to really register. Throat-slinger Doyle, best known to the kind of people who pretend to like bands who broke up when they were still listening to Norma Jean for Northern metallic hardcore/sludge bastards My War, hasn't lost his muscular roar that rides the low-end riffs like rocks in a freight wagon, but lashes out at schizophrenic highs. Some deliciously conventional chug emerges from the digital squall of Agoraphobic Nosebleed worship, disappearing back into the disorientating churning of programmed beats before you really get to grips with it – which to be fair, is probably what they're going for. You don't hum along to digital grindcore, Black Eye Peas covers notwithstanding.

COMMENT: EGYPT HAS MORE TO FEAR FROM THE ROMANIAN REVOLUTION THAN THE IRANIAN ONE

The hawkish right have been predictably fear-mongering about the influence of Egypt's Muslim Brotherhood, feverishly underlining links (correct and incorrect) between them and Palestine's Hamas and letting panicked armchair commentators picture a descent into feudal-barbarism, sectarian anarchy and damnation-spewing demagoguery. The usual barometers of knee-jerk idiocy have been pushing the idea that the greatest threat to Egypt now will come from its religious extremists, that their unseating of the 'stable', Western-backed, dictator-we-can-do-lunch-with Hosni Mubarak will lead to an Iranian-style scenario where the revolution will be co-opted by an aggressive minority looking to push their own aggressive ideology onto the country.

That's a reasonable concern, obviously. Though the Muslim Brotherhood are far from being able to pull the largest share of votes when an election comes, if it comes – both Mussolini's blackshirt fascists and Lenin's Bolsheviks were niche forces within an regime's opposition, they just shouted the loudest and were prepared to bully, threaten, murder, raconteur and coerce their way to the top when the revolution came. The Muslim Brotherhood's history of indiscriminate violence makes this seem perfectly reasonable, but now the cameras have turned from Tahrir Square to whatever the next flashpoint is in this glossy rolling news soap opera, the greatest threat to emerging democracy in Egypt looks far less exciting. It looks like more of the same.

Romania is still waiting for the last of the old guard to be rotated out of the system and for the old problems and inequalities within Romania's mildewy, Soviet-style apparatus to finally be addressed, yet, like Egypt, history will record the toppling of a dictator as the end of the old era and the beginning of a bright new one. As soon as Mubarak stood down on February 11, the media behaved as though this was fait accompli for democracy, reporting news of a governing military council holding the fort until the September election with a straight face. Now the army, echoing the running street battles of its Romanian counterpart, is happily closing down protests in concert with the same police officer's who three days before were looting museums and stripping out of their fatigues to pose as pro-Mubarak counter-protestors.

The army, custodians of both Mubarak's regime and Ceausescu's regime in Romania, are traditional friends of autocracy. Autocracy keeps them well funded, allows them to bloat their ranks and wages, keeps them away from the civilian oversight that curtails their benefits, and a natural synthesis between their styles of people management provides a nice little retirement option in politics for generals who've run out of meaningless medals to accumulate. Like Romania, the Egyptian army presented itself as a politically neutral force of patriots representing the will of the people, and like Romania, the Egyptian army were at the centre of the old regime and saw it in their best interests to get shot of an unpopular dictator and his oppressive police state as quickly as possible in order to preserve the status quo. To quote Don Tancredi in 'The Leopard', di Lampedusa's study of the crumbling aristocracy in revolutionary Sicily, “Things have to change so they can stay the same.”

Prior to entering politics, Hosni Mubarak was a career officer in the Egyptian air force and his temporary replacement as executive head, is Mohamed Hussein Tantawi, an officer since 1956 and Minister of Defence since 1991 – long thought a possible contender to replace Mubarak, it'll be no surprise if he chooses to run for election in September, assuming an election is even held. Ceausescu (who was Deputy Minister of the Armed Forces under his predecessor, Gheorghe Gheorghiu-Dej) was offered up as a sacrificial lamb by the military and by conservative forces within the Communist Party, who since 1990 have accounted for all three presidents, a good number of prime ministers and, along with former agents of the hated, all pervasive Securitate secret police, much of the cabinet and civil service, and have been understandably hesitant about reform that would change the mechanisms of their power structure and personal wealth. Though change has come to Romania, it took at least a decade and it came largely in spite of the politicians who made it possible, and it's ongoing.


There are plenty of superficial similarities between Hosni Mubarak and Nicolae Ceausescu, their personal corruption and their stodgy, dated rhetoric, but the real parallel is in how a popular uprising was subtly stage-managed by the army and how forces at the heart of the old regime are now active within the new one, and how the world confused a single newsworthy act, the toppling of a dictator, as being the tidy and obliging conclusion to a whizz-bang television feast. In the 2004 election, current Romanian president Traian Băsescu, himself once part of Ceausescu's government at a senior level, commented in a moment of self-awareness, "You know what Romania's greatest curse is right now? It's that Romanians have to choose between two former Communist Party members."

That, above all the alarmist threats of jihadis, ayatollahs and anarchy, is the worst thing that could happen to Egypt – another two decades of autocratic stagnation disguised as a transition to democracy.

BAND OF THE DAY: HOMBRINUS DUDES

US two-piece Hombrinus Dudes are like the White Stripes of tearing off cocks, if the White Stripes were both dudes and listened to Terrorizer's 'World Downfall' endlessly. Piledriving, buzzsaw crustgrind from Grand Rapids, Michigan with ear-rattling shrieks that sound as though the vocals have been packed into a tube and fired at an extreme velocity into your face, Hombrinus Dudes have cranked out a bunch of splits and one beast of a full-length, the utterly toxic 'Politi-Kill', complete with Sepultura and Infest covers, on Punks Before Profits.

Grind duos are common enough to be more than a novelty, more relentlessly fast than Population Reduction, groovier and meatier than Iron Lung or Jesus Crost, Hombrinus Dudes are old school crust/grind savagery with a recession-proof roster – a warning from Napalm Death's cash strapped future.

BAND OF THE DAY: SAKATAT

Absolute sweat-caked savagery, Turkey's Sakatat have that late '80s sense of intemperate chaos absolutely nailed – devotion to the canon of Napalm Death, Agathocles, Sore Throat and Phobia drips from every open wound scream and flailing early MOSH-catalogue riff.

Forming in 2005, Sakatat released a bevvy of split 7”s and toured hard, unbelievably hard, getting as far as Switzerland's Mountains of Death, the Czech Republic's Play Fast or Don't and Obscene Extreme (where they recorded, amazingly, a live tape!), and the Netherlands' Bloodshed Festival to underline the respect afforded to this stripped-down three-piece's bloody knuckled grindcore assault by the people who know.

Old school, in every possible sense of the word and hugely prolific, Sakatat have no CD appearances outside of some tour-only CDRs and a track on Power It Up's 'A Tribute to Nasum', so it's time to invest in a deck and grab their array of forthcoming splits, their live Bloodshed fest cassette and more.

REVIEW: WEHRMACHT 'VIVA SHARKO!' (FOAD)

Closely affiliated with Cryptic Slaughter and Spazztic Blur, placing them right at the heart of that particularly troublesome strand of crossover thrash that didn't get plaudits within the scene that birthed it – too fast and abrasive for the classic thrashers, too inane for the burgeoning extreme metallers, and too obviously metal for the punks, Portland, Oregon five-piece Wehrmacht gained a diehard following with the founding generation of grindcore instead.

Perhaps now they'll get their dues. Cripple Bastards' screecher Giulio had a hand in this release (he runs FOAD Records along with Marco Garripoli, who ran the original FOAD zine back in the dawn of recorded history), Erich Keller of Fear of God has waxed (hurrhurrhurr) lyrical about them on his superbly involved blog (and again), and the mighty Napalm-chuffing-Death covered 'Fright Night' on 'Leaders Not Followers: Part 2', and this super limited boxed set, containing both 1987's 'Shark Attack' and 1989's 'Biermacht', is a trouser-moistening proposition for archaeologists of extremity.

Remastered and bundled in with assorted demos for a jaw-dropping total of 57 tracks, 'Shark Attack' is the high point, (and  an aside someone really needs to compose a thesis on thrash metal's fascination with sharks), raw, raucous and totally unafraid to piss away  an entire song, aptly titled 'Puke', with 50 seconds of someone being sick and the rest of the band reacting to it in a mirthless 'Beavis & Butthead' style. 'Biermacht' is more family friendly, with the sort of bounce that plunderers of Suicidal Tendencies and SOD repeat ad infinitum in their shitty neo-thrash DayGlo abortions, but the slight air of menace and the venomous vocal delivery, which has occasional shades of Verbal Abuse's snarling Nikki Sicki, remain uniquely Wehrmacht's.

Unwittingly (or maybe not, it's easy to think of a band who write songs about beer as idiots) Wehrmacht found that perfect balance between stupidity, simplicity and speed, stumbling through the back door into a whole new array of genres and sloshing inspiration around like pilsner from a pint glass. This is party thrash, certainly, but look at who was partying.

BAND OF THE DAY: PULL OUT AN EYE

“You might have heard some scary stories about Belarus, about it being the last dictatorship in Europe, about police brutality, about no freedom of speech, about lame political opposition, about nation being a herd of obedient idiots… Well, everything listed (and much more) is true. We live in a shithole some retards proudly call their motherland. I guess that's the reason why Belarusian punk hardcore scene has always been highly politicized and most of the lyrics have social/political bias.”

In honour of yesterday's slightly depressing monologue on the hopelessness of instant messenger revolt in Belarus, Minsk's breathless thrash punks Pull Out An Eye have that raucous, fist pounding will to fight. Featuring bassist xRudyx, previously of the equally venomous (although awfully named) Appleshout, Pull Out An Eye's 2007 self-titled full-length deals with Chernobyl, neo-nazi violence, homophobia and abuse of authority in the old school circlepit-friendly neo-'80s hardcore fashion of Vitamin X, ANS and any other much hyped band adorned in skate art and Circle Jerks riffs.

Conscientiously translating their lyrics and mission statement into English, Pull Out An Eye know that the best way to communicate the frustrations they have to deal with, is to get those frustrations into people's stereos. Pull Out An Eye don't trade in impotent rage, they trade in articulated rage.

COMMENT: TWITTER REVOLUTIONARIES CAN'T SAVE BELARUS

While the world sits barnacled to the Al Jazeera live stream, praying for meaningful change in Eygpt and looking on approvingly as other regimes in the Middle East relax their rule to avert the oncoming storm of revolutionary fervour, it must appear somewhat bittersweet for the people of Belarus. Trapped in a decaying Soviet twilight, Belarus' own popular uprising in December 2010 against blatant electoral fraud was comparatively under-reported and brutally suppressed without the carnival atmosphere that's characterised the global conga-line to democracy of the last few weeks.

In power since 1994, President Lukashenko is a bantamweight by Hosni Mubarak's spectacular vote-rigging standards, but like Mubarak he rules over a one-party state within spitting distance of 'civilised' Europe. Where they differ though, is that Mubarak's Egypt is an authoritarian failed democracy wearing the sober black suit of democratic capitalism. An obedient US client state, and a contributor to the War on Terror, Egypt is beaten only by  Israel when it comes to accepting American arms and support, while Lukashenko's realm is a totalitarian relic, barely tolerated by even Moscow and outright condemned by the US as  Europe's last dictatorship. Lukashenko's foreign policy may appear raucously outgoing by the standards of Kim Jong Il or Enver Hoxha, but compared to Mubarak his regime is an isolated ideological fortress with every aspect of society monitored and controlled by the successor entities of the brutal Soviet apparatus.

Lukashenko looks sideways to the east and west, and profits from his relationship with his neighbours in the EU and Russia, but he isn't beholden to them. Mubarak on the other hand, is on his knees, tickling the balls of North America and Europe for loose change, with a relationship so sophisticated and interwoven that he not only profits from it, but relies on it for his nation to function. With this greater prosperity and interaction with the world comes a greater proliferation of new media, largely the driving force of the Egyptian and Tunisian revolts, and a high placing on the international agenda of things people give a shit about, allowing doughy, white armchair revolutionaries from San Francisco to San Marino to pass judgement, register support and outrage, and galvanise their own media and governments into contributing to the story.

While both are the leaders in internet activity for their regions, with use in Belarus pipping that in neighbouring Russia (46.2% of the population in June 2010, compared to Mother Russia's 42.8%) and the uptake in Egypt being thrillingly brisk, press freedom index Reporters Without Borders rates them differently. The situation in Belarus is 'very serious' where as Egypt is merely 'difficult'. While Egypt has five major Internet Service Providers (at least two which are run or part run by companies outside of Egypt) and over 200 smaller ones, Belarus has 30, all of which use the bandwidth of the the state owned Beltelekom. When Mubarak's regime shut down the internet on January 25/26 in an attempt to stifle reporting and disrupt the organisation of protest, it was a cumbersome, messy process which left them with many dial-up services still working and only an estimated 88% of the whole network shut off, while in Belarus, with a flick of the switch, a black hole swallowed up the country on December 20, blocking access to opposition websites, LiveJournal, Twitter, Facebook, Gmail, and YouTube for the entirety of the population.

In Egypt, surveillance of internet use by the government is a matter of request – it's largely reactive, but in Belarus, very much pro-active. As of February 1, Lukashenko passed into law a bill giving an 'Analysis Centre' executive powers over the internet, requiring the ISPs to register all computers in Belarus which use the internet, internet cafés to identify their patrons, track individual use in the country, assign domain names and close websites by decree.

It's the global press, in particular Al Jazeera, that really make the difference in Egypt though, rutting frantically like dogs in the street with widespread internet access to create an endless feedback loop of coverage and opinion. In a world where the internet has finally given the people not only the power to challenge the line of their governments but to actually have it be heard, Egyptians and journalists both have contributed to the constant coverage, building a terrifying, nigh-on-unstoppable momentum of public opinion, with other Arab states stepping in with protests or legislative capitulations of their own to add fresh wind to the ongoing global narrative.

Regardless of the end result of change, Egypt at least had the freedom to call for it and the world had the freedom to call back. Belarus, meanwhile was enshrouded in a media blackout lit only by searchlights and muzzle flashes, cynically deprived of the press roadtrip that characterised Egypt thanks to the proximity of Christmas, the lack of holidaymakers in peril, the absence of a Slavic answer to Al Jazeera prepared to see the wrong end of a baton to get the job done, no an overarching metaplot about freedom in the region, and more importantly, fewer digital hotlines between people on the street and their internet placards.

Syria, also outside of the West's sphere of sympathy and closer to the Belarusian model of totalitarian control with the world's highest concentration of secret policemen, the vicious Mukhabarat, and informers suffered a similar fate. Its Facebook driven 'Day of Rage' on February 4 was pre-empted by days visible police presence and the beating of protesters showing solidarity with Egypt deterred any mass outpouring of discontent.

The fires in Belarus died for want of the coverage to stoke them, the people left the streets defeated, journalists were beaten and critics imprisoned. The new media revolution of retweeted slogans and street fights over broadband access isn't going to change the destiny of the poor, embattled Belarusian people anymore than it helped Syria. They're going to have to do it the old fashioned way, and drag a dictator kicking and screaming from his motorcade to die swinging from a lamp post.

REVIEW: ABNORMYNDEFFECT 'BETWIN' (MACABRE MOMENTOS)

The opening squall of programmed glitches may cause shoulders to tense up in all but the world's six breakcore fans, careening Meshuggah riffs take over, swinging recklessly from brutal death/grind to bass-thwacking jazz interludes somewhere between Cephalic Carnage and the Dillinger Escape Plan, with only awkward Shai Hulud-style metallic hardcore whispering falling awkwardly flat like the Dropkick Murphys on an Orange Order march.

Forever keeping you just off-balance, but never becoming unpalatable, technically proficient without losing that raw nastiness, 'Betwin' might not stray from its overmined reference points, but Moldova's Abnormyndeffect nail it with a raw intensity that comes from having to fill out a visa application with every border you cross and a tightly honed precision that comes from hard work. It's been posited that bands who start out fighting just to achieve those modest everyband dreams of a gig, some recorded music and a badly designed t-shirt, make better music. When you hold 'Betwin' up by its dowdy cover against the soulless guitar school meandering of much technical metal, it's perhaps not as accomplished or as complicated or as obviously the product of a grade-something-certificate-in-somethingorother, but it's certainly more meaningful.

BAND OF THE DAY: CLINGING TO THE TREES OF A FOREST FIRE

If album of the year lists weren't a big pile of cancerous nothing perpetuated by people nursing a swollen sense of smug self-importance, second album 'Songs of Ill Hope and Desperation' by the cumbersome Clinging to the Trees of a Forest Fire would have racked up a hyperbolic phrase or two.

But album of the year lists are a big pile of cancerous nothing, so it probably didn't, not in a world in which Six Feet Under continue to exist. Nevertheless, this Colorado trio are filthy. Their frantic blend of crust-caked grindbastardry and slab-dragging blackened sludge riffs is like a emaciated, bloodsplattered survivor clawing in panic on the earth walls of a mass grave, screaming for rescue, death or the soothing balm of madness. In a moment of inanity, they dubbed themselves 'bestial funeralgrind' and while the last thing the world needs is some humourless cunt picking that up and running with it... it does fit quite nicely.

REVIEW: NEEDFUL THINGS 'TENTACLES OF INFLUENCE' (OBSCENE)

Poland and the Czech Republic are without doubt, the underground heartland of European grindcore. Maybe it's the recent history of direct political action, or the sense of very real impotence and stagnation that characterised much of post-communist decade, or maybe it's just the preponderance of gassy lagers doing something to the attention spans or shortage of vowels making lyrics seem angry, but in this part of the world they build them fast as fuck and thoroughly pissed off.

Active since 1995 and having released a split with the absolutely blistering Lycanthropy, Needful Things have bolstered their rumbling, Scandinavian-style assault with some monstrous, muscular production on 'Tentacles of Influence' (which you can stream here, and then BUY, obviously!), giving the whole thing a sense of Rotten Sound, circa the bloody-toothed pummelling of 'Exit'. The perfect balance between that old school chaos and modern, tightly-hewn delivery like a laser-guided warhead packed with rabies, 'Tentacles of Influence' is a serious, zero-bullshit offering that'll make both casual fans of the genre and diehard speedfreaks drop their jaws and fill their pants.

HAPPY FREE MUSIC MONDAY!

Two doses of legally downloaded goodness to set off your week, first up a super tiny 3" EP from Polish hellions Suffering Mind which you can get down you here, and secondly an EP from English drum machine duo Unnatural Selection - grab that here!

REVIEW: COKE BUST 'LINES IN THE SAND' (SIX WEEKS)

Woah, puns!? Don't let this get out, because it could seriously change the way people think about music, but it looks like it might be possible to make straightedge hardcore and have a sense of humour.

Featuring Magrudergrind drummer Chris, Washington DC natives Coke Bust have the same sense of aggressive, tooth-spitting urgency and the same appreciation for meaty, circle-pitting grooves. Obviously sans the grindcore, Coke Bust deliver a frantic take on late '80s mosh fodder, gleefully breaking out the gang vocals like an AD/HD Youth of Today. Originally released in 2009 as a vinyl LP, this CD edition comes with their earlier 'Fuck Bar Culture' 7”, a demo and some other assorted tracks that means there's a sudden disconcerting drop in production quality around the half-way point, but that's only a momentary distraction from the general flurry.

It may only reach the 30 minute mark thanks to having earlier material thrown on the end but as a result, the breakneck 'Lines in the Sand' is a rare fastcore/powerviolence album that actually feels like one.

VICTIMS ALBUM ARTWORK UP, HAPPY DAYS

Swedish crust bastards Victims, based around Nasum/Sayyadina bass-twangin' grindcore royalty Jon 'Elle' Lindqvist, are releasing their long overdue new full-length, 'A Dissident', through Deathwish Inc, Tankcrimes and La Familia, on April 12 - check out the artwork to the right. The band's most recent addition, former Raging Speedhorn guitarist Gareth Smith kept a studio blog here. Oh, and production is courtesy of Entombed's Nico Elgstrand, who also did the new Rotten Sound. Awesome!

BAND OF THE DAY: COLLISION

Perhaps not as deserving of the accolade as others, if you haven't heard/seen Collision in action – you're not getting out nearly enough. Obnoxious purveyors of punker-than-thou grindcore abuse, the Netherlands' Collision are all about the snarling shoutalongs, hard-thrashing riffs and chunky grooves.

Celebrating ten years in 2010 with the 'Decade Of Disgust' compilation (which, by the way, you can stream here and buy for a pittance), riddled with loads of their infamous cover songs, and their take on 'Closer to the End' on Power it Up's 'A Tribute To Nasum', Collision have just finished recording their eagerly awaited third full-length for release this year. All of which sums these maniacs up nicely – saluting the chaos of grindcore's past while charging recklessly into the future.

If there's one disappointment from Collision, it's that their toxic green t-shirt is sold out.

REVIEW: WADGE 'GRINDCORE LU'AU' (GRINDCORE KARAOKE/BOVINE)

Wadge have always been shaken like a ragdoll by the tsunami of whimsy, the spectre of Hawaiian shirts, tiki bars and generally cringeworthy wackiness detracting mightily from any genuine appeal lurking in their otherwise reassuringly orthodox drum-machine flurry – that's just the shit you have to content with when, at 4am, you decide your idea for a painfully specific theme band is the funniest ever and has infinitely more staying power than all the other painfully specific theme bands in the world.

Perhaps the most high profile of releases on J Randall's Grindcore Karaoke (and the only one so far to get a physical release, through Bovine Records), by merit of already having frustrated optimists over two previous full-lengths and a bunch of splits with bands who don't feel the need to open with the 'Haiwai Five-O' theme. Unless you proudly own MOD's 'Surfin' MOD' and stick it on every night while shooting pineapple juice out of your nose with barely restrained mirth, you'll be delighted to know 'Grindcore Lu'au' tones down the gimmickry considerably on the actual music (the art and lyrics are business as usual, which is fine) with only the odd burst of tooting 'hold, please' woodwind to distinguish a satisfying slab of genuinely furious and fist-pumpingly robust Napalm-esque crust grind as otherwise being the product of a diseased mind.

That said, the tock-tock-tock-percussion assisted riffing on 'Lost Kingdom of the Menehune' is brilliant. Aloha!

BAND OF THE DAY: DEMOKHRATIA

A collision of the words for 'democracy' and 'shit', by the end of the week Algerian fastcore hellions Demokhratia might be elder statesmen for failed democracy, lecturing their North African brothers who're poised on the cusp of death, (in)glory or both in Egypt.

Unleashing that punkish, freewheeling that makes great hardcore great and the twanging breakdowns that induce doofuses to chase each other round in little circles, Demokhratia's most recent EP, 2009's 'Bled el Petrole Takoul Lekhra' 7” on French label Darboukah, is perfectly concise blast of vitriol from 'petrol country'.