Perfect Match: Grindcore For The Traditional Man
Resident grind-guru Ron Deuce attempts to find trad/power metal fan tigeraid’s Perfect Match! Will he succeed in selecting a siqq suitor, or will this blind date be a downright disaster? Tune in to find out.
What is better than successfully filling a genre-sized hole in a friend’s playlist? Being that friend who gets to revel in all those new bands that previously eluded their taste. Suggesting an unfamiliar band from a seemingly impenetrable sub-genre can be a notoriously unrewarding exercise for both parties. Perfect Match is a new series we’re running where we share the incomparable love of metal, using our respective years of wisdom to help those of us in need.
How does it work? The idea is that readers who’re struggling to get into a particular genre or have dabbled but would like to delve a little deeper in a certain direction write in and we pair them up with a member of the Toilet ov Hell staff in the attempt to find their Perfect Match. Sound like fun? Well, if you’d like to participate, details for entry will be located at the end of this post. On today’s episode we’ve got Ron Deuce helping TovH regular tigeraid grind his ass into gear.
“Since I have tried and failed multiple times to get into black metal, I will shove that to the side and instead choose grind, at the repeated insistence of our illustrious Dubya. I’m mostly into true, power and doom metal these days, with occasional forays into thrash or OSDM. But someone recently posted some tunes by The Drip that I found myself enjoying, only to discover they were considered Grindcore! With grind, I guess what tends to turn me off are vocals that are completely unintelligible and are generally a mess–not even so much understanding every word, but not even having much rhythm or flow to them.
My current tastes lean heavily into traditional/power. Listening to a lot of Solstice lately. Outside of those, I’m really digging Undrask, the new Ex Deo, as well as Power Trip like everyone else. In terms of taste I’m all about vocals and lyrics–I love riffs as much as the next guy, but I don’t have the technical know-how to really appreciate the nuances of it. The mightier and more bombastic, the better! Perhaps there’s a grind band with Manowar influences?”
– tigeraid
Ron Deuce
Alright tigeraid, I have been summoned by the Toilet Overlords to answer your request. I may not be the best qualified but I can certainly satisfy some of your criteria. First off, I must tell you that as far as I can tell, a Manowar grind band does not exist and if it does, it has been relegated to some poor experiment on some 50 year olds myspace page from back in 2000. Not saying it can’t be done, but that’s a tall order that may be fully realized at some point in our lifetime, but it’s going to take a group of people with some special skills to pull that one off. Fear not because what follows should be considered good news for the rest of the things you are particular about.
So you like The Drip? Their new album is fantastic and they are most certainly worthy of all the praise they’ve received thus far in 2017. If you desire more of The Drip, allow me to offer up a worthy comparable from Russia’s Tsygun. You will not find the vocals decipherable unfortunately, but musically they are very much on par with The Drip’s style and execution. The riffs, vocals, performance and songwriting are very much along the lines of The Haunting Fear of Inevitability and literally anyone who cannot get enough of said album will find this album very much to their liking. They get a shade more blackened than The Drip, but you’ll hardly notice because the riffs absolutely dominate and when they slow down it’s for a reason and not to promote a breakdown. Bang the whole album at the Camp of Bands below for confirmation.
Next up, let’s tackle your thrash/death metal fetish within the confines of grind. Again, the vocals will be indecipherable and I hope you can hang in there and understand that we are meeting you halfway. Pittsburgh’s Complete Failure play a style of grind that is executed with Slayer-like precision. Invoking the name of Slayer can be something of an insult in 2017. Think about the good ol’ days when Slayer made their competitors look like mere mortals and they seemed invincible to any kind of criticism because they were the most aggressive and uncompromising of any band to come out at that time. When your band is relegated to the world wide web, it’s hard to get noticed because there is so much everywhere at all times trying to gain your attention. Well, direct your attention to Complete Failure because they are the diamond in the rough that have most certainly not gotten the notoriety they most assuredly deserve.
Lastly, let’s address decipherable lyrics and grind. This is a tall order for sure. There is one record I can point to that will fill the grind quotient and also allow you to understand the lyrics without have to consult a web or paper source while you follow along. The band you seek is Hateplow. Hateplow is the brainchild Malevolent Creation guitarist Phil Fasciana (yes, known dumbass racist, so feel free to discontinue if that is a deal breaker), Cannibal Corpse guitarist Rob Barrett and drummer Dave Culross (Malevolent Creation, Suffocation). Not only are the lyrics distinguishable on Everybody Dies, but the songs here are aggressive and pummeling. Of particular note in the lyrical department are the words to “Ass to Mouth Resuscitation” which very descriptively depicts the act on which the song title is based. You wanted decipherable lyrics and grind, I’m sorry this is the best we can do. In all seriousness however, this album slays and is one of the precursors to what we have now come to understand as death grind. Here it is for your musical consumption.
I hope I’ve helped you out with some of your grind criteria today tigeraid. If not I apologize for any misrepresentations or shortcomings. Here’s hoping some brave soul can effectively merge grind and Manowar sometime in the future [Editor’s Note: Don’t try this at home. Please.] and with that, I’ll hand back over to our host Lacertilian to give you the details on the next episode of Perfect Match.
That’s it for this week folks, if you’d like to participate in a future episode all you’ve gotta do is send an email to toiletovhell@gmail.com (make the subject/heading ‘Perfect Match’) and tell us your target genre/style along with a little description of what your tastes/expectations are. Maybe include 3 bands you currently dig & why, and we’ll find your perfect match!
