Bump n’ Grind: The Freaky Deaky Edition
Oh no, you got weirdness in my grind! Oh no, you got grind in my weirdness! Whatever will we do?
Greetings and welcome back to the most criminally underrated series in the Toilet ov Hell. Today I’m talking grind(ish) bands on the spectrum of unconventionality, starting with a pretty straightforward powerviolence act. Let’s get to it.
Deadwitch – S.S.H.
Powerviolence is punk taken to its logical conclusion. Harder. Faster. Filthier. Deadwitch may be a new act on the scene, but they go at it like old pros. The two songs on this demo are stripped-down, bare-bones aggression that will whip you to death with barbed wire dipped in vinegar. If you hate the man but love nasty and brutish music, this will be right up your alley. Deathwitch get a 1 for weirdness but a 5 for aggression. Give Deadwitch a like on Facebook and toss them a couple bucks for the demo!
God Mother – Maktbehov
[W. Note: I wrote this blurb before I saw Ron Deuce’s excellent mini-review. It was just coincidence that we both found this album at the same thing.] Straddling a fine line between the all-out assault of Finnish Grind and the American battering-ram approach to powerviolence, God Mother manage to inject a whole of creativity and freshness into a scene that’s more bloated than a rotting cow corpse filled with decomposition gases. God Mother have everything you could want in a grindy album: grooves deeper than Palo Duro Canyon, intelligent song structure, and a bowel-shaking low end rumble. Even more impressive is that the band somehow manages to combine elements of Piss Vortex-esque dissonance with Theories-esque adrenaline to create a more cerebral grind experience. If you want a hardcore offshoot that transcends the beaten path while remaining grounded in old world hate, this will be right up your alley. God Mother get a 2 for weirdness but a 5 for execution. Give God Mother a like on Facebook and save up some Monopoly money for a record!
Goolagoon – Patrickviolence Demo
If you go to any grind/powerviolence fan page, you’ll likely encounter a lot of strange themes/gimmicks. Some of them are humorous. Others are moronic. To tell you the truth, I’m not quite sure where this one stands. I’m a grown ass man pretending to be George W. Bush on the internet, so I don’t really see the appeal of Spongebob Squarepants. That said, this demo goes hard. The little audio clips from the cartoon create a nice dichotomy against the vitriol of the riffs and manic intensity of the vocals. Plus, you should know by now that I’m a fan of female vocals in grind/PV. If you want to hear surf rock reinterpreted as grind and long for le good old days of le 90s cartoons, this will be right up your alley. Goolagoon get a 4 for weirdness but a 5 for violence. Give Goolagoon a like on Facebook and buy that demo for $1!
DWMF – Does a Shark Bark
Drop everything you’re doing because you’re about to go on a magical quest with this last selection, and I’m your dungeon master. The scene: a trippy technicolor forest with candy cane trees. The time: twilight if the sun was purple and cast a lavender dusk over the Earth. The activity: you and your party are battling a horde of flying monkeys from the Wizard of Oz. They’re all tripping on acid. Suddenly your body sprouts fur, and you transform into a mighty werebearshark. What do you want to do? Ideally, you’ll just drop another tab and fully surrender to the weirdness. DWMF is the sister-band to the Toilet’s own Scab, with both bands sharing guitarist Taylor. This is a spazzed out, super-bizarre acid punk, but it still manages to sound tough as nails. Equal parts weird and violent, it’s just like your creepy uncle Carl, just without all those VHS tapes in the basement. If you like being strangled by Twizzlers and think Sharknado is the apex of cinema, this will be right up your alley. DWMF get a 5 for weirdness and a 5 for depravity. Give DWMF a like on Facebook and toss Taylor a few bucks on Bandcamp so he can buy beer for Tyree.
(Photos VIA, VIA, VIA, and VIA)