Evolved Into Nothing

This was one of my favorite albums of last year, same thing for a lot people I think. In my opinion, one of the best, no bullshit grindcore bands going on right now. The mighty Wormrot - "Dirge", 12" on red w/ white splatter vinyl(limited to 300), 33 RPM.

I don't know what I can say about Wormrot that hasn't already been said a thousand times already. Seemingly coming out of nowhere and grabbing the internation grindcore scene by the balls and not letting go. Two highly acclaimed albums under there belt(I still have to get "Abuse"), and I think another one is on the way soon. 

Beautiful package here; sturdy, glossy cover with a  printed inner sleeve and nice colored vinyl. There are also 2 bonus tracks on the vinyl edition, and they're dynamite. I have no idea why this is a 33 RPM record though, each side definitely doesn't go beyond the time constraint of a 45 RPM record. Maybe it's more expensive to press a 45 record, I don't know.

I think Arif did this back image.

Inner sleeve

I see this around every now and again. Most recently on Hells Headbangers, which is where I picked my copy up. Hails.

~VII

Sister Gomorrah

I got to know of Thousandswilldie through the excellent live music video site Kill That Cat a while ago, and I was instantly drawn to their chaotic, and at first listen uncontrollable take on grindcore. So when I stumbled upon their "A Carcass Is Only Dead Once" 7" in the Hells Headbangers distro a couple years ago, I instantly snagged it. Black vinyl, 45 RPM(if I remember correctly).

25 songs on here, and they go by in the blink of an eye. Not a whole lot of breathing room, it's just a suffocating onslaught of blasting hyper-speed grindcore. Truthfully, this is a pretty difficult release to get into, even for well seasoned grindcore fans. There is very little to grasp onto, you pretty much have to just listen and take in the whole thing, and hopefully your head will still be intact when it's over.

Thousandswilldie's output was very small, and they sadly broke up in 2010. However, singer Mike Stitches has moved on with his new, stupidly awesome project Standing On A Floor Of Bodies who you should all get wise too right now. As for this 7", I see it every now and again in various distros. I'd suggest getting their split 7" with Kill The Client first, it's a much more palatable introduction.

~VII

Silver Year

I'm very tuckered out, so here's a quick post. A bit of a different type of record for this blog. Not hardcore, nor is it grindcore. This is Shoppers - "Silver Year", which is a release that I've become very attracted to recently. 12" on black vinyl, 33 RPM.

Shoppers is a band Syracuse, NY who play a really blown-out style of noise rock. Everything just sounds huge and covered in distortion, and the vocals really remind me of Bikini Kill. There's also some melodic riffs and I get some strong garage rock influence and maybe a little pop-punk. Kinda hard to describe, all I know is that I dig it. A lot.

My band is gonna be playing a show with these guys real soon, I'm pretty stoked. I'm gonna probably post some footage from that show here. 

~VII

Queens

I've been ranting and raving about the band Psychic Limb ever since I got to open for them(which was apparently their first show (edit:out of town), fanboy swag for days) a few years ago and I've been singing their album's praises consistently last year. I even named it my #2 album of 2011. Here's Psychic Limbs - "Queens", 1-sided 12" on yellow vinyl(limited to 100), 45 RPM.

Stupidly good record. It's labeled as a full-length, even though it doesn't even break the 10 minute mark, which I love. To me, it's the perfect length. It gives me just the right amount of solid, kick ass grindcore that I need. Expertly recorded and mastered by Colin Marston by the way.

Very interesting artwork that covers the entire gatefold jacket. There is very little information about this band, on the record and in general. They are notoriously void of any internet/social networking presence. Though you can read many show reviews and see a few live videos of this band online. I honestly have to thank the brother of their drummer for sending me an download file of this some time ago. If he hadn't, I probably wouldn't have found out that they had a record out. 

The yellow variant is long sold out, but you can still pick up copies here. Please do and support this excellent band. If any of the members are reading this, get in touch!

~VII

Breed To Breed

Here's another record that caused a lot of outrage due to it's Scion release. I got some personal beef with this record, but not because of the music or who released it(I'll get to that later). Here's the Wormrot - "Noise EP" 10", black 180g vinyl, 45 RPM.

Apparently all Scion vinyl releases are promos, thus they are given out for free. Of course, this is something that I just absolutely love and I instantly asked them to send me one at the time of it's release. Only 1000 were pressed and I've seen people sell them for crazy high prices. Pretty much just standard Wormrot songs on here, nothing fancy or anything that would remotely make me call them "sell-outs" like quite a few have. 

Great artwork from singer Arif Rot.

Now, here's my beef with this record. This is a very short EP, barely passing the 5 minute mark. There is absolutely no reason this warrants being on a 10". 2 songs on the A side, that totals about 2 minutes of music. Fuck all, this should have been 1-sided. This could have even been a single sided 7", and it would have made sense. I crave Wormrot on a 7", this format was pointless. 180g vinyl though, pretty nice for a promo.

Long "sold out" from Scion. I've seen it pop up every now and again, but you can find a download link for it easily using the ol' internets. 

~VII

Human Conditioning

This record's been in my collection for a while, but I've been playing it a lot as of late. I think I like it more now than I did back then, super super grim and rough powerviolence! Mindless - "Human Conditioning" 7" on black vinyl, 45 RPM.

As far as I know, Fazia from Hatred Surge started Mindless after she left the former band. While the HS influence did tag along with Mindless, they definitely have done their own thing. For one, this band is not as inspired by the old school sound as their name might suggest(people who don't know, get a clue). Down-tuned riffs and soupy, up-front bass production gives it a more sludgy, dystopian, grimy feel to it. Brutal stuff. 

I think this is the only RSR release I have that has matte paper.

Word has it that a follow-up EP is in the works, and will be released on To Live a Lie. Yeah, you can all change your pants now. 

~VII

59 Seconds To Kill Them And You

I picked up one of the most recent The Afternoon Gentlemen splits when I ordered the Gadget LP. By far one of the best examples of current grindcore. Every record I have by these guys shreds, and pretty much kills every band they share a split with. Here's The Afternoon Gentlemen/Chiens - split, white vinyl, 45 RPM.

6 rippers from the Gents this time around. Totally solid and fierce grindcore, as usual from them. Tight musicianship, phenomenal songwriting, and more stop-starts riffs than you can shake a stick at. I am in love with the vocals in this band too, they can pull of practically everything; the highest of high pitch screams, growls, pig squeals, power violence barks, you name it. The Chiens side is awesome as well, and definitely a good companion to TAG. I'd say they're definitely more fastcore, which is all fine by me. More stop-start riffs, great drumming, it's a solid 4 tracks effort. They have a 1-sided 12" that I'll probably be picking up sometime.

Great artwork and packaging, filled with all sorts of goodies like a sticker, small poster, and a download card. 

I hate glare so much...

I just ordered a new TAG split which I've been looking forward too for quite a while. An update on that later! Enjoy some grindcore done right!

~VII

My Hummingbird Of Death Collection

Hummingbird of Death are one of my favorite fastcore bands, and I'm proud to say that I own almost all of their releases. Not counting compilations, I'm only missing their floppy disc single, which I've been putting off getting for obvious reasons. Now, I'm not someone who tries to get every color variant/cover variant of a record to try and make an artist collection bigger, I'm just interested in getting the music. I do care about getting the rarest variant, but I can make do with not having it. All of these records are 1st presses, as far as I know.

From left to right:

• split 12" w/ I Accuse (black vinyl)
• split 10" w/ Chainsaw To The Face (black vinyl)
• "Show Us The Meaning Of Haste" 12" (light blue marble vinyl)
• "Goatmeal" 5" (black vinyl)
• split 6" w/ Sidetracked (black vinyl)
• split 7" w/ Dead Stare (black vinyl)
• "Demo" cassette
• split cassette w/ Pile Of Infested Maggot Viscera 
• "Diagnosis: Delicious" 7" (black vinyl)
• split 12" w/ Titanarum (transparent red vinyl)

~VII

Forfeit

Jay Tichy has a LOT of Sidetracked releases coming out. Just reading his up-coming list is enough to make my head spin and makes my wallet quiver with anticipation. There's a lot I'm very excited for, and I was super happy to snag this baby from Rotten To The Core Records. Sidetracked - "Forfeit", transparent red vinyl, 45 RPM.

12 new songs from Jay and company on this new 7", keeping with the usual formula, fast songs, short song, and short songs. Definitely reminds me of the "Uniform" 7" that was released last year, but with much better production. Sadly this is no where near as good as "Uniform", which honestly is a pretty hard record to top. There is about the same amount of music on here though, including a cover of Nasum - "Red Tape Suckers". This could have easily been another 1-sided 7", but of course they put a single 20 second song on the B-side. Kind of annoying, but I'll humor it.

I snagged the pre-order edition(I think this was the first record I've ever pre-ordered), the only difference being that the cover has red letters instead of white and it's on red vinyl, limited to 100. There's also 100 on green and clear and 200 on black. As well as 10 test presses that are up for sale on discogs. Kinda want to snag one of those, but I won't out of sheer principal. If anyone wants to send me one though, I would love it!

The record also has a large 45 style hole, which I dig a lot. Please excuse the shitty-attempt-to-be-artistic-photo.

Rotten to The Core records as well as To Live a Lie have copies of this. Pick it up!

~VII

The Funeral March

Got a new grind obsession now! Seems like I have a new one every week or so. Anyway, my latest order from Give Praise Records came and I finally got my hands on this sexy piece of wax. Gadget - "The Funeral March" 12" on transparent red vinyl, 33 RPM.

A lot of my friends have been singing this albums praise for a while, and I never thought much of the band. Until however it finally got a vinyl reissue(6 years after it's original CD only release from Relapse Records), so I finally decided to pick it up. Boy am I glad I did, this is a monster of a grind album! I can easily make comparisons to the big influential European grind bands, but Gadget have enough of their own sound that keeps them just from being another Nasum clone. Lots of minor key riffs and melodies, but with enough dick-shredding velocity to keep it from being to moody. Very very enjoyable album and I'm now on the hunt for all things Gadget!!!

Love this cover art!

Gatefold packaging, not the sturdiest I've seen.

Now here's something interesting; the red vinyl is the most common color variant of this pressing. There's also 200 on white and 100 on black, and both of those variants are hand-numbered. Not often that that's the case, but whatever. The red looks nice.

The only US distro I know that has this is Give Praise Records, there's probably a lot more that carry it in Europe. Do yourself a favor and pick this up!

~VII