[November 2011] MELBOURNE GRIND SYNDICATE

DOUBLED OVER/ROSKOPP (US) Split 7" Ep

(Give Praise Records/Nuclear Ass Records/Psychocontrol)
Release date: 2011

Doubled Over Review: Doubled Over offers ultra gritty grindcore with blistering low-tuned guitars with an absolutely killer abrasive tone and equally prominent and scorching basslines, brutal drumming and sick low grunting vocals (almost no screaming bullshit except during a Haymakers cover)... Quite simply one of the best mix of grind and sludgier shit I've ever heard! Even the slow parts are rivetting. The riffs are incredibly catchy, drumming is super-bouncy, filled with groove, d-beats and explosions of of course blast-happy speed! I'd say a mix between Bodies Lay Broken's grind machinery and Hatred Surge's sick & heavy sludge/crust edge would be the best way to describe this one I think. This EP contains basically the same material as the demo tape I already reviewed here (you can go read it for further praise), but getting these songs on a record is much more awesome (and practical)! I like the no-frills approach even in the layout, just simple and effective use of creepy Michael Berryman & Dario Argento movie pictures used as layout, what more do you need? In terms of antecedents, Jack on guitars and vocals here also plays in the goregrind band Die Pigeon Die and Christoph from Roskopp is on drums. But Christoph also joined Die Pigeon Die recently anyway! Really can't wait to hear how the new upcoming Die Pigeon Die "Human Goregrind Experiment" full length is gonna to sound like! All these insane australian bands from Super Fun Happy Slide, Roskopp, Garbage Guts, Agents of Abhorrence, The Kill to Fuck... I'm Dead, The Day Everything Became Nothing & Die Pigeon Die seem to have a full length release or new record brewing... And it's almost like these are the only new grind releases I'm looking forward to right now! The Melbourne Grind scene seems just about ready to burst like a big fat purulent pustule!
www.myspace.com/doubledovergrind
Doubled Over facebook page

Being such a huge fan of the australian Roskopp I'm not sure how I feel with there being another band (this one) named Roskopp, also playing grind! Especially after listening to an advance (unmastered) version of Australia's Roskopp album "Mutation Voodoo Deformity or Disease" (upcoming through the awesome Blastasfuk Grindcore label!), it's maybe too early to do a full review on that one but I'll just say it's one of the most awesome full length album of grind I've heard in a long time! But there was bound to be more than one grindhead also into skateboarding shit in the world, hence the doppelganger Roskopp effect! The original idea might have been to do a Roskopp/Roskopp Split Ep here, but Doubled Over probably needed a record to bring along on their US tour, and I imagine that's why they ended up on the other end of this split. Anyway I'm digressing to the point of stupidity here...

Roskopp (US) Review: The Roskopp at hand is the american one, based in Denver, Colorado and containing a member of Catheter. Their shit is pretty killer too, perhaps slightly rawer and more straightforward than Catheter (according to my very spotty memory) just fast, burly grindcore in the Excruciating Terror style, except with radically shorter songs but still a crushing heavy blur of a sound, lots of crusty beats and some blasts with an ear-piercing snare, dual vocal assault of guttural growls and highlights of raspy shrieks!

Tracks: Side Doubled Over: 1)Swimming in Shit 2)Bloated 3)Sick to Death 4)It Only Gets Worse (Haymaker Cover) 5)Copout
Side Roskopp: 1)The Barn 2)Vague Survival 3)Cuerno de Chivo 4)Self Execution

http://www.givepraiserecords.com
http://www.psychocontrol.com

THE KILL "Shower of Bricks" Cd Ep

(Blastasfuk Grindcore)
Release date: 2011

Review: I'm starting to run out of shit to say about The Kill! Let's just say this short cd is a souvenir from when the band slashed their way across the US east coast with their country-mates Doubled Over & Internal Rot earlier this year! The songs on there should actually be used for a Split 7" Ep with Captain Cleanoff coming out anytime now I guess... Gotta say I'm really digging this line-up! The addition of Nik of Super Fun Happy Slide fame is perfect, he slays it with a properly pissed off performance, plenty of raging attitude. Roby's fast, dexterous guitar work would qualify as technical, some really fancy shredding in there but allied with Fuck... I'm Dead's Jay's barbarous blasting punishment it all comes together in a sickening almost Regurgitate-like crunch. However, the lyrics are what really push The Kill over the top as one of the coolest grind band ever! "Get a fucking clue you're a piece of shit like me and I'm a piece of shit like you you're a piece of shit we're all shit" That's all the knowledge you need in life really! I think I'll keep as short as this cd... The band has a full length worth of material in the can but they're taking their sweet time in terms of mastering and shit, so I'm expecting this to sound bloody spectacular! Can't wait for it anyhow!

Tracks: 1)Untitled (0:04) 2)Trolley Pushing Zombies (0:59) 3)Pub Brawl (0:58) 4)Lobotomized By Chinwag (0:46) 5)Shower Of Bricks (1:10) 6)Utterly Unimportant (1:05) 7)Passed Out (0:27)

Label: http://blastasfuk.blogspot.com
Band: http://myspace.com/thekillgrind

TRENCH SISTERS Demo Cdr

Release date: 2010

Review: Here's another band with Christoph of Roskopp/Doubled Over /Internal Rot fame on drums! He's like the aussie version of 80's Mick Harris playing drums for at least half the bands in Melbourne! This one's a bit different sounding though, more like weird hardcore, and this recording is quite rough and dark, it almost feels like an authentic 80's session, with reverby screaming vocals keeping to the background, grimy guitars and fuzzy distorted bass. Of course this stuff's still filled with frenzied blastbeats and really fast drumming! With the occasional atmospheric moments of sludge. Lyrics are pretty simple and clear messages of discontent and the name Trench Sisters seems like it could be a Rosemary's Baby reference! Dunno what else to add... This band's perhaps slightly sloppier and rawer than alot of other Melbourne but still killer shit! The sound production does an air of early Napalm Death Side A of "Scum", Sore Throat or Electro Hippies kind of stuff.
Tracks: 1)Intro (1:12) 2)Brain Swelling (0:26) 3)Boots Of Lead (0:35) 4)The Omega Male (1:42) 5)Kid On A Leash (1:07) 6)Dickhead (0:35) 7)If You Don't Know Me By Now (1:52) 8)Nowhere To Be (0:34) 9)No One (Integrity) (0:32) 10)Honour Among Thieves (0:55) 11)B.O.L. (1:39)

http://trenchsisters.blogspot.com/

AGENTS OF ABHORRENCE One Sided Lp

(Crucificado Pelo Sistema)
Release date: 2006

Review: Since the Super Fun Happy Slide, Roskopp, The Kill & Garbage Guts new albums/records seem to be taking a while to come out and I really needed a quick fix of australian grindcore to tide me over and this Agents of Abhorrence dope seemed to be the next best thing to try out! I was scared off initially by this band's apparent artsy approach but recently I've tried to open up to this whole "powerviolence" thing and also getting more into Discordance Axis type bands... And I've actually really been digging AoA's side of their split with Roskopp so I decided to ignore my first impressions and just check out this debut mini-LP! It's an old one but the only thing I could get my hands on and the artwork was the most attractive, but I'll definitely be seeking out more of their stuff later though. My main feeling is that Agents of Abhorrence are a bit like Australia's Pig Destroyer or Converge. A potent fusion of grindcore and powerviolence, original, fast, intricate guitar work with a really striking guitar tone with minimal distortion, it's almost like a regular rock sound, abrasive enough but very rich-sounding, maybe close to the Naked City's guitar tone at times with some really impressive, twisted and dissonant grind riffs hacked up with a bunch of disruptive breaks, sometimes gnawing, sludgy elements but most of the time raw, brutal blast attacks are the norm here. Shit's over pretty quickly as this is only a one-sided LP but songs are so blazing and crammed with so much shredding riffage, combative shrieking vocals and thunderous blast beats that the end result is extremely satisfying... Each song is like a real explosion of spiteful rage! Lyrically this seems like a lot of introspective kind of bullshit at times but also filled with plenty of stress and anguish which I like. Artwork and layout is pretty stunning too, with centipedes and insects crawling all over the gatefold cover! Really awesome looking band logo etched on Side B too! Lately AoA welcomed a new vocalist in Jake who also does vocals for 2 of my favorite australian grind/gore bands: Roskopp & Garbage Guts! Needless to say I'm psyched to hear how that's gonna turn out!
Tracks:1)Dead End 2)Heart(less) 3)Sleepwalker 4)Charade 5)Heirloom 6)Sever And Divide 7)Patterns In Folly 8)Paralysis 9)Character Dissection

www.myspace.com/agentsofabhorrence
Agents of Abhorrence facebook page
http://www.crucificados.de

THE DAY EVERYTHING BECAME NOTHING/CLITEATER Split Ep

(War Anthem Records)
Release date: 2011

TDEBN Review: TDEBN has always had higher production values and superior songwriting standards, however, the stuff off this Split Ep is on a whole new level, this is balls to the wall kind of insanity! For one thing I don't remember there being so many bursts of blastbeats on their previous stuff (although maybe I'd need to go back and listen to everything again!), but anyway both songs on there hit really hard and never hold anything back! Musically this band still clearly borrows a few ideas from the original Cock and Ball Torture style of brutal grind with deadly grooves and unexpected time-changes but in my opinion they even improve on this whole style here with something that's bound to crush your balls even harder! The vocals especially are some of the sickest, meanest and most animalistic gargling pitch-shifted vocals ever, just extremely well done with quite the varied liquefactive range of throat-rattling phlegmy aural textures! Riffing is really tight, purely fantastic and memorable, downtuned and super evil-sounding in a old school swedish death metal way and a flesh-ripping metallic guitar tone that will perhaps remind you of Dead (Germany)... The hooks are irresistibly gripping, impossible not to start headbanging and jump all over the place like a retard! The vinyl format maybe also adds a cool raw edge to the band's sound. Only 2 tracks on 45rpm is too fucking short though! This one really leaves you wanting more! Meaning I can't wait for the upcoming full length album, hopefully these guys can withstand the killer song-writing quality found in this Ep for a whole album! Visually, this is reminding me more of Exhumed and Impaled's slick photographic guts and splatter imagery. If you thought Goregrind was dead, think again, these guys will show you what it's like!
TDEBN Tracks: 1)Grim Gore Grind 2)Death for All
www.myspace.com/tdebn - TDEBN Facebook Page - twitter.com/tdebn_goregrind
http://www.thedayeverythingbecamenothing.com/

Cliteater Review: I like that this one connects with my previous Netherlands review special! Here we have more classic sounding death-grind in the brutal stylings of Blood (Germany), I must say really not hearing too much gore in Cliteater's sound. The vocals especially are pretty old school natural guttural death growls (also accompagnied by manic screaming). Riffing is pretty simple and straightforward, in a frantic thrashing kind of way. It's all really fast-paced, catchy and with a tons of groove. While I'm more enthused by TDEBN devatasting side, clearly Cliteater delivers some pretty fucking solid brutal and grinding death metal as well. Killer artwork by Luisma (Haemorrhage) too, I really love the point of view angle, and personally I think Luisma's artwork actually looks much better in black and white!
Worth mentionning is the really slick-looking and sturdy packaging, this is the deluxe kind of EP packaging with a spine and a slip-case and everything! In other words not a split Ep you might want to miss!
Cliteater Tracks: 1)She-male Cocksucker Blues 2)For those about to eat clit we salute you
www.myspace.com/cliteater
http://www.cliteater.net/
http://www.cudgel.de