Bump N’ Grind: The Executive Order Edition
While Don has been lounging around Washington DC and spouting jibberish out his pie hole, he’s launched a clandestine operation aimed at getting citizens of the United States to listen to grindcore. That may seem confusing, but it makes total sense given how confusing everything that comes out of his mouth is. Grindcore could potentially be banned in a heartbeat, so get in the game while there’s still time. Here’s a series of executive orders demanding that you listen to the latest grind works from the likes of Let It Die, Convulsions, Six-Score, Sex Prisoner and The Arson Project.
Let It Die
Whenever the subject of the band Nails is broached, you can get into the conversation of which genre they fall into. And the quick answer is that they do not cater to any one subgenre of metal and or hardcore. They tend to dabble in grindcore, crust, power violence and hardcore with metal sensibilities hence the broad appeal. And that brings us to the UK’s Let It Die who are very much comparable to the almighty Nails, but have a few tricks up their own wizard’s sleeve to curry favor with those who want their music delivered like a brass knuckled fist to the dome piece. Let It Die thrive by taking elements from grind, crust and sinkhole doom served on a palette of metallic hardcore. I’m quite judicious in my declaration of what is and what is not heavy, but The Liar & The Saint makes a case for being one of the heaviest albums released in 2016. This HM-2 guitar-infused trio sans bass player are fully committed to opening up burial plots wherever they want and stuffing you in them. This was released in early December with total disregard for getting consideration for year end lists, but timing be damned, it most definitely warrants your undivided attention. Seriously, the guitar tone on this one will make all the windows in the neighborhood shake.
Convulsions
Free grindcore alert everybody! And it’s actually a crime that Convulsions from Spain outright refuse to take your hard earned dollars for their product because I’m invoking the name of Insect Warfare as a band that you can compare them to. Not only that, but they exude the characteristics in their music that are comparable to Insect Warfare’s now classic World Extermination. Throw in some nods to Phobia and old school Napalm Death and that should give you an idea as to what’s happening with these guys. Near gutteral vocals vomit over a cavalcade of crunchy riffs with all the blast beats and crusty punk volatility that you can shake a got damn stick at. And by grind standards this release is quite filling length-wise. With ten tracks in about fifteen minutes, you’ll find yourself quite satisfied after one listen and then hit play again right after it finishes because the in your face intensity of Convulsions refuses to let you ignore them.
Don’s Executive Order on Convulsions says bang your head till it falls off
Six-Score
Nasum is without a doubt one of my all-time favorite bands. Their catalog is practically flawless and has spawned many a worship band for many years. I always welcome a band who wears Nasum on their sleeve as one of their main influences because the bands who emulate them well are following a very simple recipe and when you stick to the playbook, there’s not much you can do wrong. Just play some HM-2-tinged deathgrind, throw your listener a breakdown every once in a while, scream and yell over it and you’ve got yourself an iron clad case for modern day grind perfection. Austria’s Six-Score do just that if you have a thirst for some grind influenced by everyone’s favorite Scandinavian grind godfathers. Back in the fall, we premiered a video for the song “Human Robots” and I immediately wish listed their latest album Lebensräume on bandcamp because I could tell on the strength of that track alone that Six-Score would deliver the goods. And deliver they did. Lebensräume hits all the right notes across its eighteen tracks with short, well written songs that grind and thrash their way into your heart. And just to show you how much they love their Nasum, they finish things off with a to-the-letter cover of “Scoop” from the beloved Helvete album.
Six-Score has Don fooled as to their country of origin so you’ll have to excuse him on this one because he don’t geography well
Sex Prisoner
Power violence to me is where grindcore and hardcore meet. Since the mighty Weekend Nachos have called it a day, a void was left in my power violence needs. Thankfully Tuscon, Arizona’s Sex Prisoner has filled the previously mentioned void. Listening to Sex Prisoner is like drinking too much whiskey too fast on an empty stomach. One second, you’re all happy and having a good time. The next you’re all dizzy, on the verge of vomiting and muttering slurred words that barely resemble complete sentences. Many of Sex Prisoner’s songs may give you the impression that they’ll go the way of your standard hardcore song when they start off and your hopes and dreams are quickly dashed as they bust in with blast beats and yelling to throw everything out of whack. A lot of power violence bands tend to employ those four hundred pound NFL linebacker vocals which is okay in small doses, but too much meathead can kill the vibe. Sex Prisoner don’t do that and prefer to yell and scream like a disgruntled voter at a town hall where their healthcare is about to taken away by a Congress person who doesn’t understand the concept of insurance. The bass sound on Tannhauser Gate sounds all kind of cruddy in the best ways imaginable. And just about every song ends in feedback so you can hone in on when songs begin and end. Some may say that finishing off a song in such a fashion shows a lack of creativity. That may be so, but you do have to admire their conviction.
Don’s Executive Order is sharply worded yet it is fully on point given his limited vocabulary
The Arson Project
Genre mashing is and will continue to be the future of music as we know it. Disgust, the latest album from Sweden’s The Arson Project delivers some fantastic hardcore-infused grind that should be an instant favorite for those who dabble in both genres. As someone who listens to more than their fare share of grind, I will tell you all that there’s something about this album that I can’t quite put my finger on that puts it on another level. The first thing that really knocked me out of my ergonomic desk chair was the blast beats on Disgust. For some reason, when they bust in with the grinds on this album, I find myself in a warp speed bobble head trance that sends me hurdling through space. Of course that is just one aspect of this album that will garner your attention. The songs, guitars, bass, vocals, production and the abundance of carefully placed movie/TV samples related to sociopolitical discussion give this album a sense of completeness in the goals it has set out to achieve. The production on Disgust is a little cleaner than your standard grindcore fare and that doesn’t bother me one bit. It works in their favor as opposed to their detriment. It’s clean enough to the point where there’s still some dirt left around that you don’t want to have it dusted off. The songs strike a unique balance between both grind and hardcore without coming across as in favor of one over the other. The Arson Project lives up to their namesake as they set fire to everything and leave ashes in their wake. Plainly put, this album is the bull in the china shop that left the whole place wrecked and in disrepair. The Arson Project is serving Disgust on the menu, come get yourself a plate.
Don liked The Arson Project so much he gave himself face tats of his signature
That wraps it up for this edition of BNP. As always, go on that book that people put their faces on, go to band camp and make a generous contribution to these band’s retirement funds and get yourself a helping of some of the finest grind that your money can buy.
