The below video collects the entirety of Napalm Death’s seminal debut, Scum, and plays all the songs at once, right on top of one another. I saw it first at Invisible Oranges, where Cosmo Lee asserts that Napalm Death are now “semi-polished,” but that “the mashup has a strange beauty.” I don’t mind telling, you, that the beauty of it is basically lost on me; I think Cosmo’s admittance that “maybe it’s all just a pile of noise” is much more accurate. But give it a listen and feel free to disagree with me.

One way or the other, it’s pretty funny that somebody did this; pretty funny that that person apparently may or may not be Merzbow; and pretty funny that the whole thing lasts less than four minutes.

-AR

I don’t know anything about the Excrementory Grindfuckers or what the motivations for this song might’ve been. But it’s really funny. Nicely done.

Also: Korn still suck.

-VN

Thanks: Grindmyasswon’tya?

Napalm Death have revealed that they’re about to record a “mystery song” which has “nothing to do with the new album” and is “not a cover song.”

Now, calling it a “mystery song” is clearly meant to get people all hot n’ bothered. And while I’m certainly always excited to hear something new from the Godfathers of Grind, since there are really only two kinds of songs in the world — covers and originals — and we know that this won’t be cover, it has to be an original song. Thus, we can pretty much narrow the possibilities of what the band is going to record to the following:

Click to read more…

Just because Agoraphobic Nosebleed’s J. Randall and I don’t see eye to eye on certain issues doesn’t lessen my respect for the man as an artist — and his latest endeavor is definitely worth checking out. He’s launched his own label, Grindcore Karaoke, and is giving away the imprint’s inaugural release, Wadge’s Grindcore Lu’au, away for free download.

Click to read more…

Metal bands without a bassist are nothing new (Pig Destroyer, Salome, etc.), and we’ve all seen metal bands without a drummer (Genghis Tron immediately comes to mind), but I honestly can’t think of a metal band that has no guitar player. The guitar is such an obvious cornerstone of metal that it’s as though the community made an unspoken pact to let any number of other instruments get left out in the cold, so long as there’s plenty of six-string action going on.

I don’t know if Canada’s Greber are actively standing up for the bass and drums, though, or if they just turned out to be sans guitar because their members aren’t guitar players, but whatever — they make it work, even without its most basic of instruments. A new project from Fuck the Facts bassist Marc Bourgon and The Great Sabatini drummer Steve Vargas, Greber describe themselves as “honest, losing man’s music,” which is actually a really good description — the music feels raw and barebones, and the emphasis on Bourgon’s Mo’nique-thick bass gives the band’s sound a sense of downtrodden defeat that is unparalleled in grind music.

Click to read more…

‘Cause sometimes you just wanna grind up against the hot girl standing next to you…

• Wormed: Reader Dan Wolfson suggests Wormed are “possibly the most brutal and fucked up band ever… like if portal did grindcore with an inhuman vocalist named Phlegeton…seriously…it’s not your average brutal shit…this is past brutal….” and I’d be inclined to agree. This is serious. And brutal. And seriously brutal. Stream “Uncoloured Plasma Orifices Transported” above.
• Demeanor: Spazzy deathgrind from Kentucky. I’m not sure where in Kentucky these guys are from, but I guarantee they’d scare the no-alcohol-drinking bible thumpers where the MetalSucks Mansion Kentucky Korner Vince Division is located screaming down to the road. They incorporate a bunch of other styles of metal into their grind attack too, which is sweet. [Thanks: Chas Lee]
• Ninety Minute Reflex: This is more just grind than deathgrind… but at least it’s good grind. It’s fast, angry, and heavy as fuck… and there’s even a good sense of power-groove in the music, pretty amazing given the overall grind template. [Thanks: Chris Vigilante]

-VN

Jordan, drummer of San Francisco grind outfit Morning Ablaze, assures us that his band’s “ultimate goal in this musical life” is to “get completely crapped on by you guys,” and that watching their new music video for “Set to Destroy” will only waste 1:26 of our lives.

Unfortunately, Jordan loses on two counts: 1) this video and song are pretty awesome, and 2) the actual song is only like 0:30 long. Way to go, Jordan. For a bunch of self-professed lovers of Del Taco and vintage European porn you’d think these guys would know better!

-VN

Like so many grind bands, Gridlink (a.k.a. “Another awesome grind band with ex-Discordance Axis vocalist Jon Chang”) make really, really short songs. Their first album, Amber Gray, was eleven tracks in something like twelve minutes; that was two years ago already. I don’t mean to understate the amount of work that goes into making twelve minutes of music, let alone twelve minutes of excellent music, or in any way suggest that these are Triple A riffs which can be hammered out in a few hours - but come on. If your band makes twelve-minute long albums, you should be release, like, at least three albums a year. At least.

But I guess these dudes have other things to do than sit around all day and work on making me happy, ’cause they’re only just now getting around to getting into the studio to put together their follow-up. Still, I guess I should stop being a spoiled brat and just be grateful that this year we’ll get another twelve minutes of music-to-kill-your-obnoxious-neighbor’s-family-while-you-make-him-watch-by.

Gridlink will apparently debut some of this new music at Maryland Deathfest this weekend, which is reason 8,679 why I should have gone. Oh well.

Here’s half of Gridlink’s Amber Gray, in case you doubt their awesomocity.

-AR

Back in January I got to see the mighty mighty Magrudergrind play a killer (but all too short) set at Cakeshop here in NYC; and by “see,” I mean “hear and occasionally get a glance of the tops of their heads.” See, if you’ve never been there, Cakeshop is basically a basement venue, and this show was pretty crowded, and while I don’t think I qualify as “short,” I’m definitely not tall.

But the band sounded pretty good.

Luckily, my man Sean “Spleen Latifa” Gresens from Metal Injection managed to capture the performance on video, and has now posted footage of the song “Pulverizing Hate Mongers,” so now I can see what I previously only got to hear.

You can check out more clips from this gig here, and the rest of Sean’s live shit here. The man is tireless in his quest to get footage of every good underground band that comes through NYC, so it’s definitely worth keeping up with him…

-AR

After I posted an open letter of apology to Meek is Murder yesterday, MS reader Hendecahedron accused me of being sarcastic in my praise for the band. And while I can understand Hendecahedron’s instinct – I’m sarcastic an awful lot more than I’m sincere – in this case, I was being completely unironic. I am now fucking in LOVE with Meek is Murder. So in love with them that I’ve been listening to their EP, Mosquito Eater, pretty much on repeat since Monday night, taking only two breaks – once to listen to Nevermore’s The Obsidian Conspiracy, and once to listen to it again. (Of course, I also ate and showered and pooped and all that stuff, but I mean of my considerable time spent listening to music… you get it.) In other words, if I don’t cut it out with Mosquito Eater soon, I’m officially going to be bad my job (hold your jokes, peanut gallery).

And I’ll let you in on a little secret: you can download the EP for free on the band’s MySpace page (scroll down and look on the right-hand side for the link). I’m sure they’d much prefer if you paid for a physical copy, but they’re making it avail for zip zilch nada, so, y’know. They get it. Go download it now.

And expect me to continue to fawn over this band with a trace of sarcasm for some time to come.

-AR

Photo by Alyssa Scheinson

Last night I got to check out NYC death-grind trio Flourishing when they played a record release show for their new EP, A Momentary Sense of the Immediate World. A sort-of-but-not-really new project from Wetnurse project guitarist Garett Bussanick (who also handles vocals here), Flourishing went on pretty early and the crowd in the always-sweaty basement of Cakeshop was much smaller than a band this good deserves, but they still ripped.

Flourishing’s music is like the aural equivalent of being repeatedly penetrated with quick, short stabs from a dull, rusty, knife. There’s a constant contrast between that which is sharply in-focus and that which is painfully out-of-focus, like a series of fast camera-racks. One minute the band comes on like a dull, throbbing headache, and then suddenly they’re a mad scientist with an eyedropper full of acid. In other words, Flourishing are evil, but so is every other band like them; it’s the bi-polar manner in which they’re evil that makes them interesting. Tracks like “Fixture” and “Watching Sparrows” are dirty and polished at the same time. It’s a tricky balancing act, but these guys make it seem effortless. No wonder their MySpace page lists bands as disparate as Immolation, Godflesh and Deadguy as influences.

And, on a much simpler level, they’ve just managed to write some great fucking songs. A Momentary Sense of the Immediate World is only five tracks totaling less than seventeen minutes of music, but the strength of the song craft will instill within you a temptation to just leave it on repeat for multiple spins.

You really should check this band out. A Momentary Sense of the Immediate World comes out this Tuesday, March 30 on The Path Less Traveled Records. Crustcake has an interview with Bussanick, and a FREE mp3 download of “Watching Sparrows.” And for the third time in this one article, here’s a link to Flourishing’s MySpace page.

-AR

That’s what it says on the MySpace page of Denver grindcore outfit Clinging to the Trees of a Forest Fire. Vince dispatched a MetalSucks Mansion Monkey to the Axl Annex this morning to tell me to check these dudes out, and, y’know… good call, Vince! I’m really digging this band. And between the above quote and the fact that they list “Walking away from the human race” as their primary influence, it’s obvious that they share a life philosophy with a certain cranky metal blogger.

Clinging to the Tress of a Forest Fire just signed to Prosthetic, and will be playing the MetalSucks co-sponsored Prosthetic Records Showcase at SXSW next week. Hopefully Vince will return with reports of a killer live show that matches the energy of their recorded music. While we wait to find out, you can give Clinging to the Tress of a Forest Fire here.

-AR

Last weekend I finally got to see Magrudergrind play live at Cakeshop. I meant to write a review but didn’t get around to it last week, and now our friend Justina Villaneuva, who made her way through the intense pit of the little basement show to get a closer than I did because I’m a pussy, wrote a pretty detailed review for Noisecreep. If you wanna read about how awesome the show was – and it was awesome – you should read that.

No,  this isn’t a show review – just a long-winded way of bringing up NYC’s own Defeatist, who went on right before Magrudergrind. I wasn’t previously familiar with this band, but both Rich Hallford Brooklyn Vegan‘s Black Bubblegum encouraged me to get to the show early and check ‘em out. And I’m glad I did.

This is filthy, deformed, venomous grind. It almost sounds like some inbred rednecks are taunting a crying baby, except that Defeatist aren’t inbred rednecks, they’re pissed-off New Yorkers, which means they’re smarter and care even less about their fellow members of the human race. The band’s MySpace page describes their sound as “A fucking mess,” and that’s a pretty accurate description. If you have love in your heart, this band is not for you.

Check these dudes out. They’re playing Maryland Deathfest in May; hopefully there will be other opportunities to see them live before then.

-AR

I only recently discovered the blog Grind and Punishment after its proprietor, Andrew Childers, made a killer modern grind mix for Invisible Oranges. But it’s a great site, and it’s clear that Childers knows wwwaaayyy more about grind than I do, so I’ve been devouring its old posts ferociously.

Childers named Abuse, the debut album from Singapore’s Wormrot, as the best grind album of 2009, so, of course, I checked it out. Good job, Andrew: Abuse is killer. It was apparently only officially released in Singapore (which is not to say you can’t get it elsewhere if you’re mildly clever), but a press release now tells me that the band has signed to Earache, who will give the album a CD and LP release with extra tracks sometime this spring.

I’m sure that there are some tr00 grind fans who will find the idea of Wormrot signing to a known metal label – and one that houses Oceano, no less – offensive. But I have a hard time imagining three dudes from Singapore who started a band called “Wormrot” from ever selling out. Whatever gets this band’s music into the greatest number of ears possible strikes me as good news.

Check out Wormrot on MySpace.

-AR

Spoiler alert: the MetalSucks’ staff’s year-end “best of” lists are done and will be published Thursday, and Magrudergrind’s self-titled album made my list. But you can still find suspense in trying to figure out where they are on my list.

Sadly, I’ve yet to get to check these dudes out live, but here’s some pretty cool footage of the band playing three songs that was posted on Metal Injection yesterday. Lookit vocalist Avi Kulawy gettin’ all David Lee Roth n’ shit. Damn.

Magrudergrind’s Magrudergrind is out now on Willowtip.

-AR

A member of the Finnish deathgrind band Blastanus sent us an email asking us to check out their band. The band is solid but unspectactular save for their totally A+ band name. Explains their MySpace page:

The concept of Blastanus was derived from the sick minds of two friends who at a young age decided to stop trivializing their existence and concentrate on the things that matter the most in life: Blastbeats and, well, you know, assholes!

Hooray for gimmicky bandnames! Don’t get me wrong… Blastanus are actually quite good at their own blend of death metal and grind. But dudes… your band logo is WAY too readable. Get on that.

Since their MySpace page is at myspace.com/blastanus1, I naturally wondered what lives at myspace.com/blastanus. Sadly, the answer is “Invalid Friend ID.” Boo.

-VNN

Completing their coverage of this past summer’s super-awesome grind show at the Brooklyn Masonic Temple (featuring Pig Destroyer and Brutal Truth), our brovers (half brothers, have lovers… purrr) at Metal Injection have posted five pro-shot clips of Repulsion’s first-ever NYC performance. If you’re one of the many sad (and possibly suicidal!) people who wasn’t able to be at this incredible show, here’s your chance to live vicariously through the magic of cameras and editing.

Below, enjoy “Slaughter of the Innocent;” you can check out more br00tal footage here.

-AR

Did anyone see Today is the Day’s Axis of Eden DVD? I only got to see some of it, but it was some pretty trippy shit, and clearly there was a mind behind it that was as willing to think outside the box as TITD main man Steve Austin.

That mind belonged to filmmaker David Hall, who now returns with Disgorge, Mexico, a film based on the album of the same name (minus the comma) by Fuck the Facts (read our review of that record here). A press release tells us the following about the flick:

Described by Hall as “a substance abuse art house riff on the destructive and volatile nature of love,” Disgorge, Mexico: The Movie is a violent, hallucinatory depiction of one woman’s strange journey, set to the soundtrack of Fuck The Facts’ Disgorge Mexico.

Costumes for the film were created by Nekro, known for her costume design work for Arch Enemy’s Angela Gossow.

Plus, Agoraphobic Nosebleed’s Jay Randall (who is easily one of the best tweeters in the world) says that “It’s like your eye is a cock, balls deep in a peyote button butthole.” So there’s that.

Disgorge, Mexico doesn’t have an official release date yet, but it should be out soon on DVD and as a digital download. You can check out the trailer by clicking the image below. If said image doesn’t make you extrememly curious, something is wrong with you.

-AR

Our partners in brotal fucking destruction, Metal Injection, captured some super-sweet footage of Brutal Truth at their Brooklyn gig with Pig Destroyer and Repulsion this summer. And I would be remiss if I didn’t tell you about it! It’s Brutal Truth, fer fuck’s sake.

Here’s the band performing “Get a Therapist… Spare the World.” You can check out more of Metal Injection’s grindtastic footage here.

-AR

Glenn Beck is an idiot. I know some readers think we’re too left here at MetalSucks, but even if we weren’t relatively liberal, Glenn Beck would still be an idiot. There’s no way around that. There are intelligent people on the right with legitimate political ideals that differ from those of the left, but Glenn Beck is just an asshole. He routinely lies, contradicts things he’s said in the past for the sake of advancing his own agenda, and seems to be part of this growing movement to incite violence against his political opponents. So, sorry. I have nothing nice to say about the man.

So. Ziltoid sent us this video of Insect Warfare’s “Internet Era Alienation” laid over footage of Beck. Zilty told us that “I’m indifferent to the music, but Glenn Beck is an idiot, so I enjoyed this;” and I actually like the music, so it’s double the fun for me. Thanks, Zilty!

Insect Warfare actually start a semi-reunion tour (original singer Rahi isn’t taking part for reasons I’m not clear on) of the UK & Ireland tonight. Get dates here.

-AR