Premature Necropsy

I feel like I keep saying this, but I was very excited for this split to come out and to finally get a hold of it. I missed out on the pre-vinyl cassette release, which would be sick to have since I kinda listen to tapes more than records these days. However, this 7" record is definitely a very much coveted purchase. I actually bought two copies of this record because I thought the first copy I bought got lost in the mail. Here's the Haggus/Acid Feast split, released by Suicide of A Species, Fuck Your Life Records, Grindfather Productions, and Bloody Scythe Records. This tri-color pressing is limited to 66 copies.

I was so excited to hear the Acid Feast side, and it was very well worth the wait. Acid Feast is straight up awesome, I don't think they have a dud release in their whole catalog, this split included. Four new songs and an groovy Ulcerous Phlegm cover to close it out. As usual, the recording is as gnarly as the stench from the putrefying insides of a crypt. Powerful, fast blast beats and crushing riffs with a smart use of groove, and catchy mincecore breaks. The songwriting is just top notch, "Parasitic Infestation (In The Coffin)" for example is just one amazing riff after another, just stomping your brains out. A real stand out track. It's just a pretty dang perfect slab of ugly, gross grind, I love this shit to death. However, very sadly Acid Feast broke up almost a year ago. Word is they have one more posthumous release coming out, fingers crossed! Jim, their guitarist plays drums for a ripping band called Disease now.

This is some of the riffiest Haggus material I've ever heard, with two lengthy tracks filling in their whole half of the record. I don't listen to crust punk at all, but I'm just gonna say that the first track, "Picnic At The Morgue"sometimes sounds like Wolfbrigade. But it has these horror/surf/death metal riffs in the first big verse. Kinda reminds me of Ghoul. It's a fun song I gotta say. Kinda silly, but I'd totally dance to this live. The closer, "Marinating In Coagulated Pus" is more of mincecore stomper, with lots of stops, and a totally rabid closer. Twin guitar leads are included. Awesome stuff, lots of variety and a jump-kick energy.

The front cover is pretty gnarly. 

I was SO happy I found the tri-colored split. It's a thing of beauty, I'm very impressed with how they look.

HIGHLY RECOMMENDE SPLIT! All the distro's I linked above should have this is stock. Please buy it.

~VII

Fascination Of Regurgitation

This wonderful 4-way split was on my want list for a long time. I'm turning into a big sucker for the 4-way splits, particularly ones that stick to the C20 time length like this one. What a great line-up of bands, put out by Ill Faith Records, Suicide Of A Species and Fuck Your Life Records. Limited to 200 copies.

So first up we have Haggus, undoubtably the hottest flame in the newest generation of mincecore bands. These four tracks were actually recorded back in 2015, pretty close to the beginning of the band. The vocals were recorded in 2017 however. This is more of that classic Haggus sound before they became more of a down tuned, goregrind band. Lots of major key, punky riffs, polka beats, and fun, catchy breaks and transitions. This is the kind of sound that made me really fall in love with Haggus back in the beginning, top notch mincecore riffing!
Meatus are up next. For those who don't know this is a long-going solo project from Joe of Archagathus (and Cannibalism, Violet Gorge, Raw Addict, etc). Joe is a grindore madman, constantly creating and recording some of the roughest and most real brutal music. The fidelity and volume level just fucking drops as soon as Meatus starts going. It was shockingly quiet, I had to really crank up my stereo. This stuff just sounds so gross and raw, I have no idea what kind gear you need to record on to make it sound this way. I love it. Completely raw and uncompromising goregrind, with plenty of sick riffs clawing through the muck.

I actually mainly picked up this tape for the Disemboweler tracks, to be honest. Disemboweler is a Simpson's themed, brutal grind group duo made up of Brandon Denetsosie (who runs Ill Faith records and contributes to many grind projects in the Arizona scene), and Chris Tapo, who is by far the person I trust the most to deliver the hardest gory grind I'll hear. This is the real deal stuff, it's fucking heavy, slamming, slapping grind. Just straight up, to the point brutality with punishingly heavy drums, vocals and meat-shredding riffs. Not to mention I always appreciate a good Simpson's sample. Definitely the highlight of the whole tape for me, I really dug this quarter a lot.
The Disembowler side ends with a looped sample that goes on for an almost disorienting amount of time. Which goes right into the rawest portion of this 4-way split, a band called Albratos. I had never heard anything about this band before, and according to their little bio in the jcard they were never really active at all. This quick little spurt of songs is insanely rough and sloppy. Almost like they just never picked up instruments at all before hitting record and just went for it. I can dig that a lot most of the time, but this was just a little bit "meh" for me. It didn't really have that punch in any of the instrumentation that really grabbed me, like a gross guitar sound or a sharp snare tone. Nothing terrible, just not my favorite of this whole tape.

This tape looks and sounds great, a top notch, quality job all around. The red cassette was a very nice choice of color. I also like how both side ends with the much more lo-fi sounding bands. 

There are 200 of these things floating around in the world, so you should have no problem scoring a copy if this interests you. Buy from the labels!!

~VII

Lupara Bianca

Here's just a quick post about the cassette version of the recent Deterioration EP, "Lupara Bianca". I'm not gonna go into much detail with this one, since most of my opinions will mirror Tylers from his earlier post about this release. This is the cassette version, self released on Deterioration's own label, Shattered Dreams Productions in a run of a think 50.

This thing sold out almost as soon as it went up. I got mine from Acid Redux Productions, who were thankfully stocking a few copies. This definitely ranks as one of my favorite Deterioration releases so far. Great, heavy recording, super tight and catchy riffs and drum syncopation, good flow from track to track, and a good chunk of song writing variety. The ending to the last song, "I'm Actually Wearing A Lot Of Explosives Right Now" is one of the most intense bits of grindcore this year, totally unrelenting. I definitely have found myself returning to this tape a lot out of all the Deterioration releases I own, and will probably be on my favorites of 2018 list. These guys just can't stop!

Got a nice, to the point layout without anything flashy in the packaging. The jcard feels like its made of photocopy paper. Great sounding cassette though, undoubtably a professional dub job.

Maybe one of the best/dumbest spine fonts I've seen. You don't see many bands fuck with all lower case Times New Roman. The only thing that would have made it more extreme is Comic Sans.

Great EP from one of the best American grindcore bands. I hear that this is supposed to come out on a 7" too at some point, so if you missed out on the CD, cassette, or 8-track, keep an eye out for that.

~VII

Suh Dude

HOT FIRE TAPE ALERT! Fuck, I really really wish I had picked up this cassette sooner. This thing was recorded in 2016 and I only just caught on thanks to some friendly hype from some trusted peers. I picked up this Suh Minutes of Dude tape from a recent order from Acid Redux Productions, who also released it. Released on a pro tape, my copy is obviously on a green cassette, limited to 60 copies.

So, great band name right?? Meme status aside, it's a brilliantly humorous take on the classic 7MON name. The name is honestly probably what kept me away from buying it for so long, cause on the surface this looks like it would be an enjoyable, but overall standard, stupid as hell noisecore tape. Boy oh boy is that not the case here. Noisecore; absolutely, but this is some of the most pulverizing shit I've heard in a minute. An international quartet/supergroup of heads in the scene, though I'm not exactly sure who. The only name I recognize in the credits is Rado, who I'm just gonna assume is the same Rado from 7M$.

Basically what you get here is 20 tracks in almost 10 minutes of some of the most legit and hard slapping Fear of God worship I've probably ever heard. Right down to the unchanging "Peeeaoohhhhh" growl vocals. The recording is perfect. Hard panned, dual bass assault with avalanche heavy drumming. Everything is basically low end, but with a nice amount of trebly crunch on the basses. There is some semblance of riffs that pop up occasionally, but mostly it's just noise. This is just crazy, chaotic, knuckle dragging noisecore to the max, it's incredibly aggressive and honestly makes me wanna throw objects at walls.. There's even a burp or two that they keep in. This session could go on for 3 times as long and I would enjoy every second of it. My roommate said a funny thing in regards to this. I'm paraphrasing but it was like, "You have that kind of life where you say things like "Dude, Suh Minutes of Dude is an awesome band."

Pro tape means pro volume levels, and this tape sounds destructive! Very smart to have the full recording on both sides too. With my new auto-reverse cassette deck I can just let this shit play over and over.

There are still copies of this available from the label, so you know what to do. This gets an incredibly high recommendation. 

~VII

Waste Of Notes

This was a split that I knew I had to buy right away,  as soon as it popped onto my radar, no questions asked. Hard to believe it actually took this long for these two legends to do a proper split 7" together. If you need an introduction to either of these bands you probably aren't the type of person who would read a blog where I'm geeking out about them. You also probably know if you want to buy this regardless if anyone says it's good or not. This was released by the infamous Ratgirl Records, in probably a multitude of color variants. The white color press is limited to 100, 33 RPM.

There was a time when I aggressively collected Agathocles records. Nowadays, I've definitely slowed down, especially with the 7"s. I don't know, it's hard to find the Agathocles splits that really "wow" me these days. This is one of those recordings that falls into that "okay, but nothing great" category. The recording is putrid sounding, obviously. The cymbals really wash over everything and the snare is barely audible, making it kind of a slog. The guitars have a nice dirt bike buzz to them, and Jan sounds great as always over these simple riffs. There's a couple moments here for sure, but nothing that's really outstanding.

Definitely more so, I bought this record to hear the Deche-Charge side, and boy did their half deliver all the goods! This is the kind of DC recording that I love. Just the complete destruction of music, blown out to the absolute max! No riffs, no fidelity, just ugly sounds and Chainsaw's grunting. It sounds like the microphone was literally placed inside one of the amps, it's that kind of super hot low end. There's some great short traxxx moments with more pauses towards the end to keep it flowing and engaging. A lovely recording from these legends!

I absolutely love this cover art. It's a beautiful illustration, I wish I knew who drew it but no information was given.

So yeah, Deche-Charge and Agathocles finally did a split 7"! You already know if you need it or not.

Bathing In The Excrement That Is Your Contrarian Opinion

This is a nice and rowdy split from a couple of super sick bands that always bring a walloping amount of pure grind fury. Indiana's own Flvx Capacitor and one of Lima, OH's nastiest bands, Landfill. Released on these sick orange tapes by Riotous Outburst Records, limited to something like 200 I think!

Flvx Capacitor are up first, serving up 9 new tracks of warp speed grindcore, plus a cover of Extreme Noise Terror's "Deceived". This side is awesome, and some of the shortest and most urgent sounding songs the Flvx has made so far. I think Chris told me that the riffs were written over improvised blasting that was recorded earlier in time. This band has riffs for days, both familiar and more modern sounding, but without sounding techy. Basically these three just know what the fuck their doing when it comes to grindcore. The very high quality recording is also top notch, everything sounds powerful and clear, though their is a noticeable drop in volume and umf on the "Deceived" cover. Great side overall though, just vicious!!

If you haven't heard Landfill yet, you're most definitely fucking up hard. Spearheaded by Will Otler (Methlab Explosion/Faction Disaster/Hot Babes/etc.), Landfill has been one of my favorite projects of his yet. Their side is completely disgusting, brutal grindcore with all the fixings you would need. Deep, gurgled vocals, thick down tuned guitars, a pingy snare, and head-to-concrete riffs. Like the Flvx side though, after track 3 it sounds like a totally different recording, way more raw. Landfill is a somewhat swirling ensemble of members, so this is nothing really new or problematic. No matter what Landfill is always brutal and I dig all of this.

This is a nice looking DIY tape, I adore the orange cassette shell. My copy got just the taddest bit fuzzy in the dubbing I think. The cymbals kinda have that washed out sound. However when you're doing 200 tapes on your own it's pretty dang forgivable.

This is a sick little split, you should definitely give it some ear time. Both these bands are definitely putting out stuff you should own , what are you even doing??

~VII

Catalyst

Washington State based fastcore/noisecore mashup titans Sidetracked have had nothing short of an incredibly prolific couple of years. Releasing at least 12 individual pro-CDr EP's on Jay's own label, Problems They Persist, on top of many other split 7" records, tapes, and so on. I recently was able to snag the latest 6 (!) CD's, plus this super quick 10 track cassette EP released on Practiced Hatred called "Exile". Not sure how many this was limited to, but the red artwork variant has the lyrics included. Naturally, I had to snag that version. 

Wooo boy is this fassst. Pretty much by the time you pop in in the player and go and sit down, one side is over. Hardcore dudes will have the hardest time moshing to this. Heavy duty, super raw and incredibly stop/starty micro-jams. Long time admirers of Sidetracked will probably find a lot of similar qualities to the "Hustle" cassette, another 2 minute or so tape release if I remember correctly. Working with a heavy inspiration from early super aggressive hardcore bands in terms of riffs. Breaking them down and boiling song structure down to the shortest of track lengths. I've always thought Sidetracked was a genius band, and seeing them embrace rawer recording choices and taking on almost pure noisecore styles from time to time has been a very fascinating and wonderful thing to see.

I'm curious why the lyrics were only given to people who bought this red cover version. To me the lyrics in a Sidetracked song serve as strong a purpose as the music does. That aside, this tape looks sick. I really like the design, it's straight and to the point, and diverts from the usual look that Sidetracked releases have.

"Exile" has already sold out from the label, but I think Sidetracked still have some for sale on their bandcamp page.

~VII