The Soufflet Of The Samurai: UNSU - "K.I.A.I (Kill Icons And Idiots)" Review

UNSU is a grinding four piece from France and their 2014 album K.I.A.I (Kill Icons And  Idiots) is a ripper. I didn't realize this album was released in 2014 until I stumbled on to the band's website and saw that they were hyping up the album's release in December. (I didn't even know bands still had websites.) Had I known this, K.I.A.I. would've been high on my "2014 best of list." Like top 5 at least. UNSU slays the majority of that list.  

UNSU drummer, Adrien, is a blast metronome behind the kit. I'm hearing little in the way of tom work during the speedier passages, which makes up almost the entirety of the album; instead, relying on mostly snare and cymbal work. I love the snare sound in the mix. It's right up front and has that poppy, solid, wood block sound that sticks out. The snare sound makes his blast beats and the pulsing drag rolls he has a penchant for utilizing resonate that much more.

The guitar is nice and hefty with distortion. Bassist Micky and guitarist Manu do their jobs quite nicely driving the songs forward, fleshing out the bones laid down by the equally propelling drumming. I appreciate the fullness of the strong use of power chords. No wankery here, as they say. The bare meat and bones approach is usually the best. These songs are great. 

Vocalist Dam is right in line with the rest of the band. I'm not sure if he's doing all the vocals here, but he's the only one listed as such in the liner notes. Either way, we hear your standard grind vocals here: low gutterals, raspy highs and even higher pig squeals. 

K.I.A.I. is a well rounded album from a great band. Production sounds good but not overly polished; just slightly fuzzed over enough to even everything out without tredding into the "raw" territory. Again, the snare sound is the nicely jaggged edge of this smooth pebble. Popping out in the mix just the way I like it. I've always believed in the emphasis of the snare drum in grind over the more metal mix of counting on the double bass kick. There is double kick presence here, mainly in the hardcore, mosh heavy breakdowns of the longer songs. (Longer songs being about a minute and a half, so we're not talking epic here.) The breakdowns and the songs that open with slower dirges that eventually fall away to sweet sweet blasting seem to be the formula here. If I had to nitpick, that use formula would be the only downside. UNSU use three types of songs on this release: open-dirge-fast, fast-breakdown-fast and all fast. But I don't mind at all. I love the grind formula. I love this album. This thing owns. It's French, bitch! 

FFO: Human Cull, Nolentia, Rotten Sound, Mumakil

Start Panicing: Nervous Impulse - "Time To Panic" Review

Nervous Impulse is a Canadian death-grind band that I was completely unaware of until I stumbled upon Time To Panic, the band's second album. This record is a sonic assault of grind blasts, shredding death metal guitar and some real unbridled vocal mayhem. There's an undercurrent of maybe some deathcore, not unlike late Cannibal Corpse. Especially in the guitar tone and the breakdowns.
The drumming on Time To Panic is what initially sold me on Nervous Impulse. Almost non stop, rapid fire blast beats. The snare drum seems to almost be overflowing with blasts on top of blasts. Snare rolls sandwiched between twitching blast beats that pulse with hyper blasts. The steady machine gun fire of the double bass pedal is a constant trampling hum ricocheting from song to song. At first, judging from the tone and speed of the drumming, I thought the band used a drum machine. The addition of an Agoraphobic Nosebleed cover had me thinking my suspicions were confirmed. Yet, low and a behold there's a name on the liner notes; Yan Chamberlan. The dude's a beast. He's not the flashiest drummer, but he's fast and precise. All killer, no filler.
The guitars are nice and heavy and full of pitch harmonics with the occasional staticy solo. Chuggy stop/start breakdowns fill out the dirge interludes of the longer songs. These slower segments may be a tad on the repetitive side. Possibly the only down side to the album depending on your personal tastes. The audible bass is a pleasant surprise here. Bassists, Felix Bourcier's quick, spring loaded solo runs really stand out within in the songs. Breaking up the structure or lighting the fuse within a song. Everyone on this album is on point and tight.
Lead singer, Eric Fiset, does an insane job of covering mic duties and gives truth to the term "harsh vocals". This guy has about a half a dozen different voices going on here; screechy screams, breathless yells, guttural lows, muffled roars and so forth. His style is rambling just as much as it is ugly and vile. He's like a regular Linda Blair.
All in all, this might be a little too deathcorish for more traditional grinders, but the blast beats are well worth it. Like most of Blast Head Records' catalog, Time To Panic sounds shiny and sharp. Crisp production helps secure the metal sound in the death-grind quintet's latest release. Well, that and the punishment dealt out by the band's speedy riffs and even speedier drums. More speedier? Most speediest.

FFO: Aberrant, Misery Index, Agoraphobis Nosebleed, Cannibal Corspe

It's All In The Meat: Napalm Death - "Apex Predator - Easy Meat" Review

This is a shocking choice for my first album review because it is widely known that I openly dislike Napalm Death as a band. I don't even like their first album Scum. Now all you grinders out there who just recoiled in horror and vomited on themselves, hear me out. I tried to like them. I did. I could never get into them. Not even "FETO" held my interest. And everything after that just seemed liked varying levels of death metal rather than Grindcore. Don't get me wrong, I recognize Shane Embury's genius and I recognize that Napalm Death has influenced the Grindcore genre as a whole. I mean I'm not insane, but still. Napalm Death is a perfect example of a Grindcore band for metal heads who don't like Grindcore. Jokingly I've refered to them as the Metallica of grind: everybody likes their early stuff, they've influenced scores of extreme metal bands, they've been going for four decades and fans are steadfast.

All that aside, this is the best Napalm Death album I've ever heard. Highly decent for their 15th studio album. This is the most venomous I've heard the band sound. I'm shocked at how good Apex Predator - Easy Meat is. I'm very tempted to buy this album. (I can't believe it either.)

Like with any grind album, we'll start with the most important thing -the drums. This isn't a blast fest, by no means. They are there, but the majority of these songs are just straight punk as fuck fast. Accompany this with the thrashy-punk and discordant riffs that are being throw around here and we're in good shape. And when the blasts do come into play, they're blistering and sharp. Very modern sounding blasts instead of the choppy, alternating snare clomps that are typical for some metal/grind acts. All this packaged in a professional studio mix. This album is well produced without being overproduced.

Moving on, my second main concern with Napalm Death, besides their copacity to blast, is their vocals. I've never liked the vocals on any of Napalm Death's earlier releases and I certainly have never liked Barney Greenway's vocals. His past efforts only rang as strained, constipated grunts to my biased ears. I was pleasantly surprised to hear Barney's vocals have improved a great deal. Fluid and consistent, somewhere between Shane McLachlan and Oderus Urungus' gruff roars. And for the record, whoever is doing the backing highs is on fucking point. 

The only down side to this album are songs like the titular "Apex Predator - Easy Meat." Clean vocals accompanied by a Gregorian chant/pirate ditty/that troll song from the 1986 movie Troll style of music. There's a couple of these songs on this album that I'm sure fulfill some artistic vision, but I found completely unnecessary. The cockney tinged clean vocals remind me of early 80's British anarcho punk. Which makes sense since Napalm Death originally sprang from the Crass Records scene. Must be a British thing.

All in all, Napalm  Death seemed to have returned to their punk roots instead of the groove metal they've been passing off as grind since the 90's. This is their stab at keeping up with today's modern Grindcore, much like Brutal Truth's End Time. Not bad.

FFO: Extreme Noise Terror, Brutal Truth, Terrorizer, Phobia

The Best Grindcore Albums Of 2014... Probably

BEST GRINDCORE ALBUMS OF 2014


It seems all the grindcore blogs skimped on an end of year "best of" list for 2014. Lists that I usually rely on to show me what bands and albums I've slept on so I r go pick them up and jam them accordingly. After finally tracking down a majority of the grindcore releases for 2014 I've made my own list of my favorite releases of 2014. That being said, I'm going by the releases that came across my radar so I'm sure there are plenty of gems out there that I've missed, but whatever. Full lengths only. No EP's, no splits, no comps.

The Maybe Goodest of 2014
Top 10:


10) Archagathus - "Dehumanizer"/Super-Fun Happy Slide - "Drop Your Pants And Grind"
I tied Australia's Super-Fun Happy Slide and Canada's mincecore legends Archagathus since their offerings are so similar. SFHS gurgles out some pretty intense grind/gore-grind sounding awesomeness. Disgusting and fast. As for Archagathus, I'm not the biggest fan of mincecore, but this punk as fuck, raw, scabby slab of grindcore is definitely worth a spin. A little more dank and muddy and a little less eccentric compared to SFHS, but that's the way they like it.


9) Ass To Mouth - "Degenerate"
I was definitely surprised by this album. I wasn't familiar with this band before this album. From the band's name alone my first thoughts went to some terrible goregrind band or, God forbid, pornogrind. Instead we have songs about drinking and smoking pot. And Jeebus help me, I like this album. Grind with an undercurrent of grind n roll, but not in the shitty Blood Duster way. Vocally we have highs, lows, pig squeals, hardcore shouts and even gang vocals. Even the slow songs on this thing are good.


8) Human Cull - "Stillborn Nation"
This debut album from these UK grinders is a scorcher. This album is up and up grind. 23 songs in about just as many minutes. No frills crusty grindcore. It could be said that the songs here are indistinguishable and that these guys aren't exactly breaking new ground, but that should hardly be a bad thing in this genre.



7) Six Brew Bantha - "Intravenously Commodified"
I love this band. One of Canada's best grindcore bands going today. Extremely tight, spastic stop-start grind. This album picks up exactly where their 2012 self-titled album left off. Fast, lo-fi blast beat pings and slower, guitar heavy breaks. This band cannot fail.


6) Full Of Hell/Merzbow
This is not a split but a collaboration. And this collaboration is Full Of Hell's best effort to date. Merzbow lays down noise tracks under Full Of Hell's standard grind and sludge cocktail. Mainly corralled to intros, outros and breakdowns. As for Full Of Hell, the first act of this release hosts some quality blasts of grindcore. While the second half shows the guys returning to their sludge dirges. I didn't care for Full Of Hell's first album and I thought their sophomore release was okay. But this is gold.


5) Sick/Tired - "Dissolution"
Sick/Tired is an amazing band. I'm not aware of a bad release from Sick/Tired. Grindcore that ricochets from crust to hardcore to powerviolence, sometimes within the same song. This is low, dark and dirty grind. Really really nice. Better production than last year's "King Of Dirt" LP. Quick songs that destroy.




4) Gripe - "In His Image"
The final and posthumous release from the grind-violence legends out of Georgia. The furious blasts of scratchy raw grindcore that they're known for is in full swing here. Hate fueled grindcore powered by fuzzed out, gnarled guitar and ballistic drumming that turns on a dime. Top that off with the most tortured vocals you'll hear this entire year and you have the makings for an absolutely pummeling album.


3) Internal Rot - "Mental Hygiene"
Heavy, low and gruff. It's nice to see the spirit of Insect Warfare is alive and well in Australia. I've been patiently waiting for this since their self-titled EP in 2011. This fits right in with Blastasfuk Records other releases: PLF, Roskopp, Fuck I'm Dead, etc. This thing is dark and dirty. Guttural roars over machine gun drums. Really nice old school grindcore going on here.


2) PLF - "Ultimate Whirlwind Of Incineration"
Speaking of old school grind, the gulf coast grindcore gods return again this year with another totally devastating release. Lightning fast blast beats and the best thrash riffs in the genre. PLF are currently at the top of their game as well as at the top of the grindcore heap. After decades of grinding non stop, they've still got it. To be honest, in my opinion, this album felt a little subdued compared to PLF's back catalog. But don't take that criticism as a slight towards this album. It's still really good. This thing rips. Brutal. Keep them coming, please.


1) Gridlink - "Longhena"
Probably not a big surprise here. Arguably the fastest band in grind, Gridlink's swan song album "Longhena" is an onslaught. Blistering hyper-grind from some real veterans of the genre. Jon Chang's high pitch screeches are almost as unrelenting as Bryan Fajardo's mind blowingly fast blast beats. There is some real musicianship going on here. If Fajardo's drumming wasn't devastating enough for you, Takafumi Matsubara's frenzied, dissonant guitar work is just as unreal. He manages to keep things insanely fast, but on the melodic side. Gridlink just tore out a masterpiece with this one. Sadly, after recording "Longhena" Takafumi Matsubara was hospitalized with a brain infection and was left with paralysis in his hand making it more than likely impossible for him to continue playing guitar. A terrible turn of events, but his work on this album is transcendent.

An Introduction To This Blog

Alright, welcome to the inaugural post of the House Of Grindcore blog. As the title suggests, this is another online grind blog subject to arbitrary updates and an extremely opinionated and specific choices about the genre. Mainly started due to the fact that so many of the other, more superior Grindcore blogs that I subscribe to are becoming dormant and inactive, this blog is not going to be a ground breaking endeavor by any means. When I first started getting heavy into Grindcore, finding decent bands was hard to come by. I initially relied on these blogs to help me connect the dots to bands I wanted to hear and learn more about the bands that I did know. I'm starting this blog for the little grind boys and girls out there who might find themselves in the same shoes I was in. Now, having said that, I'm not a writer and I have no journalistic training. Unlike some of my other favorite bloggers, at this point, I don't receive material from bands or labels for review. I am not privy to all the bands and new releases out there. Posts will be on the releases as they come my way and are added to my collection or from albums already within my collection. Reviews and articles will most likely be limited to Grindcore, Death Grind, Grind Violence, Power Violence, Fastcore etc. Maybe some delves into Hardcore or whatever. I will try to keep posts short and to the point. Something you can scroll through fairly quickly and  inconspicuously at work. I'll try to keep the poetic flurries and life story analogies to a minimum. Hopefully you can figure out if a band is for you or not without having to weed through page after page. Remember, the best way to figure out if a band is right for you is to listen to them. But sometimes that's easier said than done. Especially if you don't even know if said band even exists. And I undestand that with all the other, better blogs out there (Grind and Punishment, Operation Grindcore, Grind To Death, etc.) and with Facebook and Bandcamp that this blog is beyond redundant, but hey, fuck it.