There are few releases as eagerly, seemingly endlessly anticipated as the debut from the Czech Republic's furious flurry of blasting chaos, Lycanthropy, and through its twenty minute burst of stipped-down, bullshit-free rage you get a clear understanding, as short, sharp and communicative as a blow to the side of the head, as to what fastcore actually means.
It's nothing new, built from the mud like an ancient city, or an egotistical, pretentious partition to divide something that's 'yours', and is therefore wonderful and exclusive and elite, from something that belongs to others, and therefore is popular and diluted and meaningless. Fastcore, like powerviolence before it, is a line in the sand between that hoary old chaos that grindcore first unleashed upon unsuspecting, unbelieving cider-sodden crusties, and the regimented, death-heavy bullshit of twenty years of bands like Misery Index and Aborted, panel beating anarchy into equilateral rods of predictable brutality under the sprawling aegis of grind. Fastcore isn't a bold new movement for grindcore's bright future, it's a reminder of the core values that made grindcore great, and the churning inferno that seethes and splutters behind the ribcage of every true grindcore band.
Grindcore is filth, energy, violence, and release, and over their seventeen-plus minutes of Insect Warfare/Agents Of Abhorrance-like orthodox barbarism, all rat-ta-tat machine gun percussion and a guitar tone like a chainsaw digging into a car door, Lycanthropy prove a potent reminder of just how that sounds.
Ah, at long last (made slightly longer by the time spent listening to this album and not reviewing it), the eagerly awaited return from the best 'Carcass clone' that don't actually sound that much like Carcass.
While Bay Area gore metallers Exhumed once had more than a little reek of putrefaction about their person (olol), they've since become a tightly honed warhead of Floridian death metal guitar heroics (there's a whiff of Deicide's 'Dead By Dawn' on 'Death Knell'), tech death drumming fury courtesy of the extremely prolific Danny Walker, and good old fashioned grindcore call and response that may as well be Extreme Noise Terror if they'd opted to drench themselves in chicken innards, rather than refuse to eat them. And yeah, there's a bit of 'Heartwork' in the bell-tolling guitar tone, but that's a mere stitch compared to the rusted braces and fat ugly sutures holding the component chunks of Necrophagia, Obituary, Dismember and Death to this slice of non-specifically old school bludgeon. Reminiscent of no one band or era, but brilliantly evocative of every slice of pose-striking ferocity to have ever hidden behind an impenetrable logo.
'All Guts, No Glory' will never be mistaken for the next step in the evolution of death metal, or its next piece of retrograde trendsetting to capture the limited imaginations of the 'underground', but if there's ever cause to stick one piece of extreme metal in a time capsule, or escape pod, to keep the cultural memory of the human race alive after some cataclysm, Exhumed do a pretty good job of summing up the absolute best of classic and contemporary savagery, like the eerie, muscular superman of Mary Shelly's 'Frankenstein', before Hollywood gave him an eight inch forehead and a cadaverous shuffle.
Be a better crust band, practice what you preach, and make your music available for free. Don't expect people to support you if you're not even remotely willing to do anything for them. You want to take apart all the hypocrisy of the old order, but you still insist on providing a service in exchange for cash/beer, and selling CDs and vinyl with enough of mark-up to make a tidy profit. And to think every generation in turn wonders when it was that the scene became another consumer option for idiots to flash cash at, before emptying their PayPal account into the lap of an overpriced distro in Germany. If you're not even prepared to step outside of the society you're condemning, how can you expect anyone to take you even remotely seriously YOU POSER?
Start by learning from New Mortal Gods. The Belgrade crusties make their one and only release so far, their 2010 demo, free to download, and seem to be very much in favour of this brand of thinking, dismissing the idea that punk itself is dangerous, and saying "To become a threat it is necessary that people change at the individual level." Identifying broadly as anarchopunk, that seems to say more about their attitude (and their shit name and their vocalist's no-fuck-given sartorial elegance) than it does their music, which has the coppery ambient chime you'd associate with atmospheric black metal, while the melodious riffage itself and the hoary bellow that accompanies it are very much a product of driving d-beat, rolling you up like a corpse in a carpet and tipping you into a quarry.
Not quite as hyped as some bands, and nowhere near as hyped as by all rights they should be, Radical Paul Praise of the frankly incomparable Give Praise Records has not only coerced Boise, Idaho Speed Force-channelling fast-pack Hummingbird Of Death into releasing a split 7" with him (stream that sucker here), but coerced drummer/vocalist Mike into talking about it. I KNOW, AWESOME RIGHT?
You have had a radical history of being in six or so other bands and projects. How did HOD become more of a serious project?
"Hummingbird Of Death became a serious band after our demo got such a good response in '05. We don't necessarily devote more time and energy to Hummingbird Of Death than to our other bands. This is just the band that has generated the biggest following. We got really lucky there."
How long does it usually take you to write an album, do you turn the speed generator on and blast 'em out?
"It usually takes months, if not an entire year, give or take. Sometimes we go through periods where we play a lot of local shows or the occasional tour, and we have to spend our practice time on our live set instead of learning new stuff. That just drags it out even longer. I want to make sure every song we write is good and stands on its own. If it takes a while to achieve a whole album's worth of those songs, so be it."
You played the coveted 2009 Speed Trials at 924 Gilman Street. How did that go? What was it like actually being measured on speed alone?
"Actually, the winners are judged on quality of performance, not necessarily speed. SFN won that year because they turned into fucking angry demonic beasts when they played, not because they played ultra-fast. It was an honor to be part of that show, but it was quite the whirlwind too - we drove ten hours from Boise that day to play, then drove right home the next day. I wish we'd had more time to hang out with all our friends that were there."
You have worked with a few record labels: Cowabunga, Sound Pollution, and now Give Praise. How do you get hooked up with these folks? Any other labels you have worked with?
"When we made the demo, I sent copies to my two favorite labels, Sound Pollution and 625. It kinda snowballed from there. I'd also like to acknowledge To Live A Lie, 1332 Records, Unholy Thrash, Sick Thought, Relapse and Deep Six, who have all worked with us too."
How did you feel when Sound Pollution went under? I always looked up to them and loved a lot of their titles - I was bummed!
"I was bummed too, but I was even more bummed when I wrote to Ken some time later and found out he wasn't even doing Hellnation anymore. One of my favorite bands."
You recently released a Floppy Disk, with a Hummingbird Of Death song and some artwork, how has the response been for that? Do you think it is important to up-keep with unusual release medium?
"Well, we haven't really done too much to get the word out about it yet. I think people are intimidated by it a little. Their first thought seems to be, 'I don't have a floppy drive, there's no way I can play it.' Those people aren't being imaginative enough, if you ask me. I don't think it's necessary for bands to do wild packaging or format ideas, but it might make kids more interested in buying physical representations of music instead of just getting formless mp3s off the internet for free." You are scheduled to play at New Direction Fest alongside Downsided, Quiver, Dehumanized, Migraine, and more. How did that come about? Are you one of the few "faster" bands on the bill?
"Yes, we will be there August 20! One of the folks involved with New Direction Fest is an old friend of ours from Boise, actually. I don't know much about the other bands aside from Downsided - our friends from Boise - Migraine, and RVIVR - our guitar player Justin is a huge fan of theirs. I kinda like my first exposure to a band to be their live performance, because I'm more likely to enjoy that than a studio recording."
You have a split LP coming up with Titanarum, who have unfortunately disbanded. How did the LP come into play?
"We discovered their EP around '07ish, and we were really impressed with their abilities and approach. We told them, 'Hey, you guys rule', found out the feeling was mutual and kept in touch. We hit them up for the split a couple years ago and they said yes. Then they broke up. Haha. The split was almost canceled because Titanarum didn't want Give Praise to 'waste' resources on a defunct band, but we and Give Praise basically wouldn't let them cancel. We were grateful that they could do one last show when we came through San Diego last year. As I recall, we only made $22 that night but it was absolutely worth it to see them play."
There are so many "fastcore" bands around at any given time, you do a really good job of standing out - such as your new split LP, where you have two songs, each about six minutes each. You have to keep a unique sound in your genre, and do a good job! What is the secret?
"I'm really appreciative of comments like that. Thanks a lot. I'm constantly aware that there are so many super-fast bands out there. We don't want to write boring stuff that no one will remember later. There's no secret. Anyone can do what we do if they keep two things in mind. One is stretching the boundaries of what fastcore can be and trying to find something new. The other is not trying to force anything. When I feel inspired, songs can pop into my head almost instantaneously. When I sit there with one or two riffs and feel like I have to 'work' on a song for an extended period of time, it usually doesn't work out for me."
You have been on about three/four tours, how have they been? Do you find the support system is good when you hit the road?
"We've had some pretty good adventures. Our first weekend trip to Washington state in '07 was kinda shitty, but ever since then we've been able to break even on most of our trips. I think it helps to know that people want you to play their town before you just hop in the van and expect to have a successful tour."
What is your favorite roadside food, and more importantly, where are the cleanest restrooms?
"Oh you know, skunks, the occasional dog. We swooped an armadillo one time in Arizona, that kept us fed for the whole rest of the tour. You can save so much money. If you are worried about finding clean restrooms on tour, you have no business in a punk band."
Any last words?
"Thanks for the questions! Check out our new 'Archaic Technologies 2' floppy disk, our split with Titanarum coming out in September, plus a split with Downsided and new LP coming out after that. Visit hummingbirdofdeath.com for information. Listen to Six Brew Bantha."
Wow, sucks to be Titanarum. Poor guys, but someone had to be a band other than Hummingbird Of Death, and it's a little known truth that there are literally DOZENS of bands who aren't. In fact seeing as Boise, Idaho's much-loved Hummingbird Of Death open up their side of the split with an atypical grave-ploughing sludge dirge, there's no obvious reason why they couldn't do a split with themselves, maybe even a three or four-way split with themselves as they pummel out slight variations on their furious style.
Second track 'The World Needs This' is much closer to to their raucous brand of crossover-inspired fastcore, feeding neatly into the snarling buzzsaw riffs of Titanarum and their howling fit of punkish, grinding thrash - not so much the party, but the kids you didn't invite and turned up anyway to key your parents' car with their collars flicked up like tearaways in an '80s movie. You are SOOOOO grounded when mom and dad get home. This is actually their final release, a neatly packaged epitaph which makes all of that 'sucks to not be Hummingbird Of Death' stuff seem especially mean-spirited, so, erm, both bands are equally great, music is brilliant and whatever band/s the late, great Titanarum wind up in will be wonderful.
Especially if they cave in to popular demand and join Hummingbird Of Death.
Spinning like a bottle to face the crustier end of grindcore, rather than any shrieking u-turn, Northern grinders Evisorax have merely tilted the goals and influences that existed on their 2008 EP 'Enclave' to take in a whole new swathe of aesthetic associations, helpfully backed up by the frantic lines of Womrot's Arif on the cover, art looks in danger of going septic and oozing pus at any second, and the knuckle-whitening, blood-vessel bursting extremity of post-Narcosis noise-manglers The Ergon Carousal, whose drummer Brod and vocalist Chris, have been inducted into the line-up.
You could be cynical, rub your chin, raise your eyebrows and suggest that Evisorax are following the warm Pacific current of hype in the direction of current favourites like Lycanthropy or The Afternoon Gentlemen, but that would be to ignore the how little has really changed, and how little time the band have had in order to contrive any bullshit on the scale following their two-label related fuckgasms and a complete band implosion. Sole surviving member, vocalist/guitarist Dan has always been channelling pure ferocity of early Napalm Death and Brutal Truth, and the pick-up torturing, hand-cramping gymnastics of Pig Destroyer (Scott Hull mastery being testament to that), but what has changed is the focus on the stop-start epileptic fits of songs that the generous would compare to Antigama and the cruel, or stupid, would attribute to Suicide Silence or whatever's currently shit and popular in the world of juddering idiot metal, shifting instead to a more drawn-out powerviolence dirge, dripping with muscle-tensing menace - no mean feat considering the songs, on average, are significantly shorter, to the point where their four-song EP is actually a minute or so longer than their seven-song album.
To say 'matured' to is to denigrate 'Enclave' as anything other than precise and purposeful, which it was - it's no embarrassing early fumble, of which most discographies are made. Instead 'Isle Of Dogs' feels like an old friend somehow changed, eyes ringed with pain and disappointment, following a break-up or a death in the family. You smile and make empty, meaningless conciliatory noises, but you're forever tense, on edge, teeth-gritted and anxious, expecting the mood to turn suddenly venomous when you say the world thing.
People have a tendency to overstate the importance of music - the more basic, embarrassing or downright cro-magnon it is, the more people feel the urge to twitter on about the "primal thump of otherness" or whatever the shit crap passes for content in the Wire. Conversely, if you come out and say that you like death metal, not for the "primal thump of otherness", but because you like "songs about sluts getting what they deserve", you're also a bell end. It's a tricky business to get right isn't it?
Why do you like grindcore? Is it because it takes the contents of your heart and spits it out as jagged red chunks from a sonic chain gun? Did you even bother reading the first paragraph? Grindcore is just an instant reaction, and don't you dare try and dress it up in your fancy pants flower language like you're taking it to meet the parents. It doesn't even have to be an instant reaction to anything worthy, it's like a gag reflex spewing out a response to foul tasting world - in Napalm Death's case, it was all about Thatcher's venom dripped claws and impending nuclear dread, and in Anal Cunt's case it was all about how gays, blacks and Hitler are have given the AIDS to YOUR MUM.
Both Despise You and Agoraphobic Nosebleed represent that sort of pure honesty, the fight or flight of grindcore - whether in Despise You's Class of '82 classically inclined hardcore pugilism, or ANb's Class of Nukem High dirtbag futurism. DY's first new material in seven years (so you can all handle the four months it took for this review to turn up), and the dual-vocal Cali powerviolence unit remain utterly ageless and sharp, not that anyone was expecting maturity or progression - it's just rage and relentless, metallic forward motion in shot-glass sized measurements lined up along the bar of your eardrums to be knocked back in quick sucession
With four very different voices driving the octopus mech that is Agoraphobic Nosebleed, to do the unexpected has always been their prerogative, and they open their half of this split album with a sludge-laden piece of riff-heavy low-end before seguing into the breathless, shrieking 'As Bad As It Is...'. Scott Hull's riff-hammering is front and centre, like a rivet gun in the sparks and molten metal of iron foundry. 16 minutes seems the perfect sized dose of ANb, just long enough to register and brief enough to defy dissection - which is as it should be.
If 'On And On And On...' proves anything, it's that when so much effort elsewhere is invested into a contrived demonstrations of some imagined level of quality, on that's tied into coloured tapes, Japanese splits and obligatory references to early MOSH-number Earache bands, the real deal is always just this; a reaction, sometimes raw and primitive, sometimes razor sharp and fret-rapingly sophisticated, but always rising from deep inside like a tidal wave of stomach acid.
If we can say anything about Brazil's Nuclëar Fröst, is that they probably didn't take into account the pronunciation implications of all those umlauts. Sure, they look hella mass rad on your t-shirt and patch jacket, but somewhere right now in Germany - the Home of Heavy Metal itself, the throne room of Blind Guardian - someone is referring to them as Nucleeer Frooost, which sort of makes them sound like a fruit drink for kids, rather than some sort of shit-kicking biker clan brotherhood of the night \m/ or whatever it is everyone thinks they are these days.
In fact, you should probably start saying Motörhead as if the umlaut actually mattered, and start correcting people, even if I don't know them: "Sorry... look, ah, I don't mean to be rude, but it's actually MoTOOORhead, yeah? Can you say it for me?"
If any of that troubles the Sao Paulo four-piece, there's no outward sign of it - although it no doubt weighs heavily on the shoulders of drumm- sorry, Thunder Machinist Tom Thräshcrüst. Whatever their crimes against language, and pretension, Nuclëar Fröst more than make amends by existing in that decreasing circle of reactionary, spirit of '86 death/thrash that actually seems driven by something other than an urge to be namechecked by OMIGODERIKFROMWATAIN, appear on Fenriz' blog or ape the arbitrary handful of clichés, conventions and masturbation techniques that make up 'metalpunk'. Like Hellhammer with Slayer's lust for galloping Nazgûl riffs instead of oppressive despair, or early Onslaught with Jeff Becerra instead of their post-NWOBHM falsetto, on their absolutely ripping 15-track debut 'Nuclear Winter Gloom', as evidenced by the respectable company they keep, sharing a split with Italy's gloriously daft and over-constructed Children of Technology and lending their drumm- sorry, Thunder Machine to Brazil's own Toxic Holocaust, Whipstriker.
Why do End Reign need four labels to put out their new 7" EP? BECAUSE IT'S SO DAMN HEAVYOLOLOLOL.
Some of the most cringeworthy reviews ever, mostly on websites but more often than not snuck into the 'real' music press by writers who've wandered terrifyingly out of their depth by foolishly claiming to "like a bit of everything", which was their first mistake as only cunts who like Mogwai say that. To compensate and see them through their 100-odd words, which can seem the like the biggest, most daunting eight sentences in the world when you're a complete moron, they fill it with lists or tenuous, over-embellished analogies. The former becoming redundant after the first, and the latter are just instantly recognisable as desperate horseshit, like when you ask someone their opinion on something they claim to hate and they immediately zone in on some peripheral detail and stick steadfastedly to that like some sort of comfort blanket that'll see them through life's many ambiguities. Then as a closing gambit they'll make some sort of sweeping statement that clearly by this point they have no authority to make in even the eyes of most musically illiterate, talk about how x-genre frequently does y and z things wrong, but x-band escape this trap.
Durham's grinding hardcore five-piece End Reign are really heavy, then. A mixture of knuckle-cracking Integrity chug with a trace of post-NYHC Early Learning Centre mosh parts that tickle the part of the brain that makes you strike fight poses in the mirror when you get out of the shower, the tar-thick riffs and that breathless, infectious rush towards musical orgasm that characterises/characterised bands like Trap Them, Cursed, Black Breath and Nails - existing at the meeting point between emotive Swedish-style crust, razor-edged thrash, and the sort of purposefully faded t-shirts worn by people at the Vice offices.
Heavier than the season finale of Game of Thrones, heavier than RyanAir carry-on luggage, heavier than your eyelids in the euthanasia clinic. Unconvincing metaphor to conceal ignorance, this reminded me of the time I blah fucking blah. What fast, angry hardcore usually does wrong is be too fast and angry, lucking End Reign escape this trap by not being so fast and angry that they put people off, but just being fast and angry enough to be brutal \m/
There's something ludicriously bouncy and high octane about Russian blackened d-beat mob Antimelodix, dare it be said despite the forceful caveat in their moniker, even melodic.
Forming in 2006 in Petrozavodsk, in Russian Karelia atop the bones of numerous forgotten wars and shifting borders of states left unrecalled by history, and out of the ashes of various local punk and hardcore bands, Antimelodix have morphed from chaotic practioners of tightly monomaniacal metallic crust to the sort of bulldozer, lightning riff d-beat of Disfear and Wolfbrigade, albeit with a dark, melancholic moodiness that it's tempting to say comes from the bleak, windswept landscape they call home, and a similarly inspired black metal intensity.
Recent 7" EP 'Hellfuck 2011' on Angry Voice Records, streamable below (and pay to download), even has touch of the tooth-spitting grind 'n' roll raucousness of Malignant Tumour in its pugnacious cocktail of utterly vital pummelling punk rock, that this passed muster on a recent tour of the Finland and Sweden, the homeland of tightly honed d-beat, is a pretty hefty endorsement.
The second in Rafael Yaekashi's four interviews with the four-way split, '4WayForDestruction', that he's releasing on his own Karasu Killer Records, based in Japan on August 27. This time, Glauco Mingau of Brazilian d-beat shitkickers Death From Above asks the questions of guitarist/vocalist Oze from knuckle-cracking, metallic thrash punks Darge (featuring Rafa himself on vocals and bass). Pics, again, are by Eder Sales Cave.
When and how did you form the band?
"After my former band Arize finished at the end of 2003, I forced my friends to form Darge with me in the summer of 2004. There were four of us to start with, but after a few member changes, we became the current three of us!"
What are your musical influences and what are your favourite bands?
"I'm influenced by SDS and European hardcore and all other punk and hardcore bands, Rafael is influenced by punk, hardcore, grindcore for sure and now he is into metal, doom and stoner, [drummer] Shinnosuke is more eclectic and hybrid! Each of us has a different taste so we don't know why, but we are having fun!"
How is the local scene? What bands are the most friendly, best live spaces for the event, interaction of band and peoples, finally, there is an active scene and support from the public who go to concerts?
"The local scene for punk and hardcore isn't that great but the number of bands and events are increasing so the scene is rising! There aren't any bands who are specially close to us. Everybody has their own ideas and I'm inspired by that. There are some live houses and the bars we can play live in Gifu, but our main venues are Gifu 51 and King Biscuit! Through Rafael, lots of Brazilians, Americans, Argentines and so on, come to our gigs, the audience can enjoy the atmosphere of mixture between Japanese and foreign people. So far we haven't had any trouble between the different type of audiences, they all cooperate with gigs and events.
If lots of trouble happens, bands and live houses will be in difficult situations and the audiences won't be able to have good times, so friends of Darge are helpful!"
We know that in Japan there's a very big and active scene for punk and hardcore despite being a small country. Is there any conflict between the different scenes?
"All of Japanese punk and hardcore bands are great! They all support tours and take care of bands from abroad. They are doing very well considering their living conditions. As long as I know. there are no fights neither troubles between different type of people. They all behave according to their own tastes of music, attitudes and fashions!"
In May 2010, Darge toured Brazil. How did you find this tour and how was the experience of living with so many different scenes, places, foods and beverages. Was there anything you disliked? or something that bothered you?
"It was difficult as Darge's first foreign country tour was Brazil but everything was so fresh and very stimulating. People in each places had different band styles, tastes of music and fashion! The most impressive town for me was Goiania, there were so many audiences and the atmosphere was so great, and hot!
And also we were happy playing a cover song of Disclose with yourself, but we decided to do this at the last minute so we had to go and buy a Disclose CD there! Foodwise, I really liked a big hambergar called 'X-Tudo! And churrasco which I had at Cherry from Hell Sakura's place was so tasty! I was surprised there was water with gas and without! I wanted to have the one without but I bought the one with gas by mistake.
"We were expecting some disadvantages before we set off on our Brazilian tour, but we couldn't cope with a hole in the bass drum and the chair for the drums being an ordinary chair, and couldn't get sound out from the bass amp. Even in the most basic environment we can't play without a proper set-up."
Which of the bands that played on that tour were the most impressive?
After the Brazil Tour in 2010, MCR Company released a DVD of this tour, how was the production and was it everything the band wanted?
"We made our tour DVD with Mr Yumikes and editing engineer at MCR Company in Kyoto! We decided on the structure of DVD before we went to Brazil but in reality, we couldn't film what we wanted so it didn't work out entirely as planned. We had decided to put some Brazilian bands in our DVD because we wanted Japanese people to know about the bands we saw there. We distributed our DVDs through out the shops in Japan who have connections with MCR Company. We also sent some copies to Brazil! Umm, I don't know about reviews? But we are happy we made a DVD that's as fun and perverse as us!"
What are the next plans of the band?
"We will be releasing CD '4WayForDestruction' from Rafael's label Karasu Killer Records. The idea of making This CD came from our Brazilian tour. This CD includes Darge and Disgust from Japan and Death From Above and Unfit Scum from Brazil! We will be having the CD releasing gig at Gifu 51 on 27 August with Darge, Disgust and Unholy Grave from Nagoya, Riverge from Osaka and GID. I'd like to go to Brazil again but it depends of the money situation and timing! In reality, it's quite tough."
