REVIEW: MARUTA 'FORWARD INTO REGRESSION' (WILLOWTIP)

There're few trickier propositions for grindcore fans - hyper-critical and aware creatures, largely - than California's young hellions Maruta. They sound good, perhaps too good, and look good, perhaps too good in their boxfresh Assück t-shirts, but they're kids who came seemingly from nowhere with their 'In Narcosis' debut, which was released via tech-death tastemakers Willowtip, and then contributed a drummer to Trivium - it's always going to be a cause for suspicion. Activate the Google machine and you'll probably find someone on a forum describing them as a boyband, like the grindcore Arsis - seriously, who on earth is going to construct a grindcore band as a unit shifter? They'd have been better off all migrating into the ranks of Trivium and hope nobody noticed all the extra members amid the pyro.

What Maruta actually are, is serviceable. Lurking in the same (somewhat uninspiring) territory as Misery Index, where more of their fanbase will be death metallers who haven't listened to a grindcore band since Nasum than, say, crusties with From Ashes Rise tattooes, 'Forward Into Regression' is a rapid-fire salvo, breaking the unrelenting tech-deathgrind firestorm with moments of Atheist-approved noodle. Satisfying on a purely musical level, it's impossible to not tap along to the intoxicating swirl of riffage or walk that little bit faster with the record blasting from the earbuds, but once silence reigns you're left with little to really sink your claws into, nothing to really engage with, no debates to be had, or opinions to be formed. Listening isn't an entirely passive experience, like much of technical metal - a balletic display of finger acrobatics for you to politely coo along to. It's just as dizzying in its rush of blood to the head and sudden surge of adrenaline as Magrudergrind, but once the music stops, the exhilaration fades fast.

If tech metal is at all onanistic, this is the proof that it leads to premature ejaculation.