BLAST PICKS: June 2021
Do you know what has been great about the pandemic? No more turning up twenty minutes late to a grindcore show and missing the first five bands! Thank you, thank you.
In all seriousness, as things start to open up, Blast Picks aims to be a handy guide to the bands playing basements, backrooms and warehouses. Support your local angry punks.
BLEACHDRINKER – Icon, Self-Released
Coming out the gates like a truck wrapped in barbed wire and with its brakes cut, BLEACHDRINKER offer up one of the vicious debuts in recent memory. Lightning-fast drumming just about holds everything together through a whirlwind of savage guitar work, down-tuned basslines and furious vocals.
Digging a little deeper, there is a real technicality to their eight tracks. Tracks like Bodies or Rot have that noisy, discordant CONVERGE feel, while Guilt and Skin slow things down. The former adding an extra touch of experimentation, with looping feedback, vocals buried deep in the mix and sporadic drumming, while the latter falls away into one long breakdown.
Is it too early to start putting together Blast Picks: Best of 2021? Cause goddamn kids, this Swedish four-piece might just take the crown.
UNHINGE – Moral Anxiety, Self-Released
New Jersey grinders UNHINGE don’t let the pace drop for a second with this three-track sprint. Mixing the unbridled speed of grindcore with death metal riffing and the suffocating atmosphere of black metal, Moral Anxiety is an incredible piece of work.
For the most part, Rob Gonzalez handles vocals, with a gruff, some would say traditional style. When bassist Mallory Rummel adds her demented shouts to the final track Under Siege, it adds a whole new layer to these guys. Extremely exciting stuff.
ABATE – Demo, Self-Released
The poor production shouldn’t be an excuse to ignore ABATE, who are creating some excellent doom-infused grind. This is a cacophonic twelve minutes of punishing feedback and duelling vocals moving between superhuman blasts and sludgy riffs. Then you get about halfway through and they switch it up again, throwing out techy, hardcore inspired guitar lines and even a few IRON MAIDEN-esque gallops.
While grind isn’t supposed to be clean-cut, the production might put a few people off, but those that stick with it will find a band worth keeping an eye on.
AUNT TIM – Demo, Decolonized Records
There’s no messing around here, fuzzy drum ‘n’ bass power violence with a fierce political bent and five sub-one-minute tracks. AUNT TIM are a mean two-piece that barely give you time to get your bearings before bringing things to a close.
The beatdown midway through Rats is brutal, a theme that continues throughout. These guys can go fast, but don’t do it for the sake of it. Much of this release is dedicated to mid-tempo savagery, including the 12 second Con Job, the majority of which is crowd-killing breakdowns at their finest.
ETEOCLES – MMXXI, Self-Released
Off-kilter power violence from Indonesia, ETEOCLES bring to mind the infancy of grind, with straight-up punk riffs backed up by seriously fast drumming. Zexga (who also plays in a one-man gore-noise-core band and designed the awesome looking cover), is clearly influenced by death metal, with the vocals veering from screams to more guttural growls.
Variations in the tempo are slight, but enough is going on here to keep you interested. The rise and fall riffing in III, adds an additional layer of chaos, which continues into IV, while V sounds almost 90’s black metal until the drumming comes in.
CORRUPT VISION, These Hands Of Mine, Toxic Wotsit
The anti-ska crew, CORRUPT VISION, combine crushing grinding with sudden bolts of ska rhythms and riffs. If that sounds bizarre, across these fourteen tracks, it’s actually surprisingly cohesive. The frantic ska vocal delivery sounds more manic and works well within the duelling power violence style.
Focusing on the various causes and effects of poverty, including the war on drugs and police brutality, it’s often a difficult listen and the ska moments, especially on tracks like Useless God are jarring at first, but ends up highlighting many more of the band’s themes due to innate cleanness of those sections.
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.