BLAST PICKS: July 2021
Freedom Day has come and gone and still, the only guaranteed cure* for the modern plague is having your face ripped off with guitar lines, your body trampled with superspeed drumming, and your mind melted by screaming feedback. Let’s get into it.
(*editors note: Blast Picks is not certified to give medical advice. Grindcore does not cure COVID-19).
Choking Game – This Time, It’s Personal, Self-released
Californian grinders CHOKING GAME waste no time with this EP. Mixing guttural growls, crushing beatdowns and intense moments of blast, these seven tracks violently fling back and forth between themes such as loving animals, transphobia, grief and homophobia. Vocalist Alyssa gives her all, filling each track with righteous bile and hardly coming back up for breath.
It isn’t just blasting though; these guys add plenty of groove throughout and mix things up with hip hop samples. Then there’s Cis-ter, a vicious call for people to fight back against any oppression they may have suffered. It’s CHOKING GAME’s most metallic track, verging into crossover territory but never letting that intensity drop.
Locust Hour – God Wasted All Of His Time, Self-released
First off, you should all go and support this one-man grind release because proceeds are being split between NAMI (National Alliance on Mental Illness) and RAINN (Rape, Abuse & Incest National Network). Do your bit and support each other.
Secondly, Thomas Turner, the man behind LOCUST HOUR, has created something intense and deeply personal. Tackling different aspects of his own mental health, each short blast veers between white noise and electronics and sudden bursts of hardcore grinding. It’s rough around the edges and Turner appears to be more comfortable with the electronic elements, but this is a brutally honest and impressive project. Delusion and Rot are the standouts, integrating the electronic elements more cleanly, and it ends with an awesome, bastardised cover of NIRVANA’s Tourette’s.
Oh, Destroyer – Songs To Decapitate Your Friends To, Self-released
Alaskan noisemongers OH, DESTROYER will split opinion with these five tracks, which play out in less than a minute. Walking the line between spazzy, math-grind and cybergrind, everything from the silly song titles (Twelve Incels Vs. Eighteen Naked Cowboys In An Erotic Knife Fight, or, If I Had A Nickle For Every Time Someone Called Me A “Ukulele Playing Faggot” I’d Have Ten Cents, Which Isn’t Much But It’s Weird That It Happened More Than Once Right?) to the brevity of the whole experience suggests a band simply playing around.
Looking a little deeper though, there are some clear influences from THE LOCUST and AGORAPHOBIC NOSEBLEED, and these brief bursts show some promise, enough to make you curious about what these guys do next.
Shitbrains – split with Sordo, Self-released
SORDO doesn’t appear to have released their side of this split, but SHITBRAINS have and these tracks rip. This two-piece go on an absolute tear across the three tracks, with duelling vocals, metallic riffing and some superhuman drumming.
It’s something of a comeback release as well, as SHITBRAINS don’t appear to have released anything since 2015. They haven’t missed a step though, focusing on brutalising listeners, as well the American political system, in just under four minutes.
Urban Carnage – Nihai Infilak, Give Praise Records
Give Praise Records compare these eleven tracks to been pummelled by the debris of a falling building. It’s hard to argue with that sort of description. URBAN CARNAGE, hailing from Istanbul, have put together a vicious if polished, slice of power violence here. Crowd killing beatdowns, razor-sharp blasting and a deeply political worldview.
Clearly influenced by DROPDEAD, as well as more modern PV iterations like WEEKEND NACHOS, Nihai Infilak doesn’t let up for a second, beating you down with twenty-second bursts before breaking out into sludgy, trudging tracks like No Life-Anxiety.
GAES – Emasculating Death, Self-released
A little late to the party with these German punks, but better late than never when the racket is this good. This three-piece drag together a host of genres, surrounding their rough and ready grindcore with hints of metalcore, black metal and death metal. Throning Bane has the atmosphere of old-school, ice-cold black metal but chugs with the best of them while Drowning and Self-Control go full throttle.
It’s a decidedly punk release, with the band doing pretty much whatever they want. Squelchy vocals, check. Metallic riffing, check. Beatdowns to break up the pummeling beats, check. A grinding good time, check.
Eastwood – Antiboise, Lixivat Records, No Time Records, Abekeit Records, Hackebeil Records and Coxinha Records.
Antiboise means the relationship between individuals or collectives that is detrimental to one of them, inhibiting its growth or killing it off. It’s not only indicative of EASTWOOD’s politics going into this release but also gives you an idea of what is going to happen to your eardrums across these 17 tracks. EASTWOOD hate your hearing and are going to inhibit its growth.
Taking their power violence with a side of metallic hardcore, these guys fling wildly from beatdown to beatdown with savage, technical precision. And when they go fast, they could put pretty much anyone to shame. Closer Faser für Faser, verges on tech-death between the fast/slow dynamic, showing an impressive range. There’s been a lot of good grind in 2021, but Antiboise is pretty hard to top.
And that rounds off our next entry of Blast Picks! Be sure to keep posted to Distorted Sound as we bring your our next entry of all things grind and powerviolence very soon! To keep up to date with all our Blast Pick entries you can find them here.