Author: Gene Meyer

Where they from?
Their Bandcamp says Stockholm, Sweden but all their song titles are in Spanish, so I’m not sure what’s going on there exactly. Did I mention that I had to watch my NFL team lose to Taylor Swift’s boyfriend last night? Because I did, and it was as horrible as you can imagine.

Why the hype?
Man, it’s been a while since we covered some real crusty-ass Oakland style stench core around these parts. Arrogante bring that real early 2010s HEAT that remind of the glory days of bands like Fiend, xHostagex and Recalcitrant. Just slimy, nasty, downtuned viciousness with barbaric vocals and drums that sound like they were recorded in a microwave. I can smell the B.O. from here.

Latest release?
Demo 2023, self-released. It took all of one month for me to remember how depressing football is. Seeing Taylor at the game with her red solo cup was just the last blemish that really put the nail in the coffin for me. It was like middle school all over again: the popular girl fawning over the dude with the mustache while I sit alone in my room in perilous anxiety and frustration. You know things are bed when you’re counting down the days for hockey to start, and it is only October. 

Demo 2023 by Arrogante

The post Blast Worship: Arrogante appeared first on Decibel Magazine.

Where they from?
Dallas, Texas. The past two weeks I have had to watch Zach Wilson play quarterback for my team and all I can say, is thank the cosmos for Grindcore. And that’s right, it’s capital G Grindcore, enough of this lowercase bullshit. Oh my god, he just threw another incompletion.

Why the hype?
Another week and another Bryan Fajardo-led unit DOMINATING the headlines. We can sit here and wax poetic about the greatest Grindcore drummer to ever live, but let’s take a moment to shout out the other guys doing their thing here. The dual guitar attack of Irving Lopez and Alex Moore should be given their due for conjuring quite the maelstrom of sci-fi, angular aggression that channels a healthy amount of Gorguts and Yautja, which should be most pleasing to the crowd of adult Dungeons & Dragons players that this release no doubt targets. Rounding out the madness is Brad Luttrell and vocalist Kevin Ortega who sounds like he is going to get stomach ulcers if he keeps doing that.

Latest Release?
Inexorable Nature of Adversity out now on Nerve Altar. Quick shoutout to “Seizures.” a song that lives up to its name with AUTHORITY. These goons are playing 4D CHESS and the rest of y’all are still playing motherfucking CHECKERS. God, I love this band, almost as much as I hate…no, I will waste no more of this website complaining about he who shall not be named. It is useless, it is joyless, it is…THE INEXORABLE NATURE OF ADVERSITY!

Inexorable Nature of Adversity by Cognizant

The post Blast Worship: Cognizant appeared first on Decibel Magazine.

Where they from?
Well, Jon Chang lives in New Jersey, Bryan Fajardo resides in Texas and Takafumi lives in Japan, so the band is truly a far-flung international grindcore unit.

Why the hype?
If you’ve been living under a rock for the past 15 years or so, let me introduce you to your new favorite grindcore band. Formed from the ashes of the legendary Discordance Axis, Gridlink has been breaking new ground and essentially revolutionizing the genre since the release of Amber Gray in 2008. 2014’s magnum opus Longhena was supposed to serve as the band’s swansong while also pretty much being the best grind album of the decade. Whereas Discordance Axis was all about disharmony and cacophony, Gridlink is blisteringly melodic and embraces the sadness and sorrow that D. Axis only flirted with at times. Gridlink are simply one of the tiny handful of bands who manage to imbue a genuine sense of emotion into the chaos while remaining completely uncompromising at the same time.

Latest Release?
Coronet Juniper, Daymare Recordings. The question once again isn’t if this is the grind album of the year but rather the decade. Gridlink have done the seemingly impossible and actually one-upped the masterful Longhena with an album that leads even harder into it’s shimmering melodicism and screamo underpinnings. Album opener “Silk Ash Cascade” is one of the most memorable and stirring extreme metal songs I have heard in a very long time and the rest of the LP keeps up the heat right until the last notes of “Revenant Orchard.” No one else in extreme music is even broaching the territory that these guys are now, just be thankful that they’ve invited us along for the ride.

Coronet Juniper by Gridlink

The post Blast Worship: Gridlink appeared first on Decibel Magazine.

Do you love angular post-hardcore being played by four straight edge dudes from the Philly suburbs? Well then boy howdy do I have a treat for you! Say hello to your new favorite band, Pennsylvania’s own Get Well.

Comprised of vocalist Scott Muir and drummer Trevor Machinia, both formerly of legendary Landsdowne hardcore outfit Prevail, and rounded out by bassist Gillen Riggs and guitarist Thomas Costello, Get Well have been formulating their blend of hardcore aggression and Jesus Lizard-esque skronk for the past few years.

The band’s latest offering Burning the Village to Feel its Warmth lurches menacingly through three new songs, channeling equal parts Botch on an ether binge and Unsane at their most esoteric. Weird music for weird people.

Get Well by Get Well

The post Album Premiere: Get Well – ‘Burning the Village to Feel its Warmth’ appeared first on Decibel Magazine.

Where they from?
Glasgow, Scotland. Alright, here is my yearly preseason Super Bowl prediction that is always 100 percent failsafe accurate: Bengals over Cowboys. Yes, that was as painful to type out as it was for you to read, but come this February you can take that shit to the bank!

Why the hype?
Despite knowing of their existence since roughly 2018, I can safely say that this is one band that continuously blows me away at every step. Imagine combining the downtuned mathematics of fellow Scots Fawn Limbs but with generous helpings of the Leeds style gonzo-violence and you sort to get a general idea of what this band sounds like. Good grindcore needs just a little bit of that dissonant skronk to really make it stand out and this band has it in spades.

Latest Release?
Rokubungi, self-released. For a debut full-length this one truly has it all: blistering, weird, erratic and even an Iron Maiden tease?? Let me just say this: I got up at 10am last year at Obscene Extreme to see these guys play to a bunch of bleary-eyed crusties and volunteers with face tattoos and they CRUSHED. You would be doing yourself a great disservice if you didn’t check this shit out, top quality AOTY material right here.

ROKUBUNGI by GENDO IKARI

The post Blast Worship: Gendo Ikari appeared first on Decibel Magazine.

Where they from?
Florida, USA. We have officially under two weeks until NFL kickoff but fall is already in the air as I just procured my first pumpkin spice flavored cup of coffee from the 7-11 down the street because deep down I am just a basic white woman. I know this is true because the other day I heard a Miley Cyrus song on the radio of my Uber and unironically thought, “this shit bangs.” Wow, next thing you know I’ll be asking to speak to someone’s manager.

Why the hype?
Cave Moth describe themselves as “Adderall grind,” which is such a uniquely perfect descriptor of their style that I almost feel like this entire article is necessary. Cave Moth’s music is a nightmarish mathematic hellhole combining influences as far ranging as the pummeling deathgrind of Plague Widow to the skewered mathy gymnastics of Thin and even some of the technical monstrosity of Viraemia. And big shout out to the bassist for making his presence known in a genre not normally accustomed to such things.

Latest Release?
Paralytic Love, self-released. I’ve always held that mathcore needs just a tiny hint of slam in order to keep the listener grounded, and boy howdy do the Cave Moth boys understand that. Behind every eviscerating shitstorm of ill-timed diminished fifths is a pummeling beatdown ready to concuss the listener into obeying it’s will. It’s no Taylor or Miley, but it’ll have to do (turns on Sex and the City).

Paralytic Love by Cave Moth

The post Blast Worship: Cave Moth appeared first on Decibel Magazine.

Where they from?
France. At long last, NFL season is seeing its way creep back into the picture. Autumn is a magical time for many reasons, not the least of which is the fact that we get to watch grown men in tights chase each other for three hours on Sunday and briefly feel like we contributed because at one point we yelled at the TV when the refs made a bad call. That and Halloween is pretty chill.

Why the hype?
Much like the fall I am also a huge fan of GRINDVIOLENCE. Now I know, you’re probably shaking your head as I try to make another tiny microgenre into an actual thing (HYPERGOREBLAST IS REAL, DAD) but I feel like the term grindviolence at least has a little bit of history outside of this beloved series, especially in reference to the french unit we are focusing on this week. It’s basically all the things we love about European style grind mixed with the tiniest hint of fastcore and boom, you have the perfect formula for music specifically designed to eviscerate people’s faces.

Latest release?
1.8.7. Myself out now on Bones Brigade Records. This record has everything any grindviolence fan (of which I assure you there are at least dozens of us) could want. Punky riffs but mixed with the blistering drumming of Nasum-influenced eurogrind. What more could anyone want? BRING ON FOOTBALL!!!

1.8.7. MYSELF by CHIENS

The post Blast Worship: Chiens appeared first on Decibel Magazine.

Where they from? Dortmund, Germany.
Speaking of Germany, I tried watching the new version of All Quiet on the Western Front this past weekend and as a war film aficionado I honestly had to stop several times because it was just too intense. It was like the opening 20 minutes of Saving Private Ryan but over and over again and without any sense of romanticism: just horrible death and misery over and over again — just like the 2023 New York Mets.

Why the hype?
YouTubers have dubbed this band “emoviolence/hardcore,” which I think is a pretty apt description, though I would say they do at times fall under the grindcore umbrella so long as your understanding of grind leans way more Cloud Rat and Iron Lung than it does Napalm Death. Either way this shit is phenomenal, beautiful, evocative and raw as fuck. It’s been a long time since I’ve heard a new metal band I could describe as “creative” but this band has it in spades, combining the most emotive elements of screamo, hardcore and grind, while still finding a way to retain originality.

Latest Release?
Erase Your Flesh, out now on Room 11. Aside from the shoegaze elements of the guitar work that are completely haunting, I think the most standout piece of the music here are the vocals, which are both incredibly raw yet powerful. The desperate shrieks of hopelessness that end “Shadow Dancers” are some of the best vocals I’ve heard all year. This is definitely a band to keep your eye on.

erase your flesh by MORAL BOMBING

The post Blast Worship: Moral Bombing appeared first on Decibel Magazine.

Where they from?
Czech Republic. If your baseball team sucks this year (God knows mine does) then you, along with millions of other Americans, have entered the dead zone of the sports calendar. I know I should probably be at the beach or vomiting on a Six Flags roller coaster somewhere in New Jersey, but goddamn, I can’t help but fighting off the itch to lose $20 on the Miami Dolphins or some other moribund NFL franchise. BRING ON TRAINING CAMP ALREADY!

Why the hype?
Lycanthrophy have been around since 1998 and have held the crown since their inception as being the grindcore band with the hardest name to spell (Lycantophy? Lycanthroppy? Like-a-can-trophy?) They’ve also garnered a name for themselves as one of Central Europe’s tightest grind units, churning out razor burned metallic grindcore on par with groups like Death Toll 80K and fellow Czech’s Needful Things.

Latest Release?
On the Verge of Apocalypse out now on Horror Pain Gore Death Productions. Very interesting to hear a band like this actually EVOLVE their sound as this latest album has a bit more of a madcap powerviolence influence a la Afternoon Gentleman and Endless Swarm. The metallic brutality is still there but it’s inter-spliced with gonzo moments of gnarly punk riffage and Pee-wee Herman vocals. A surprisingly excellent turn for a band who could have just phoned it in.

On the verge of apocalypse 2022 by LYCANTHROPHY

The post Blast Worship: Lycanthrophy appeared first on Decibel Magazine.

Gabber, commonly referred to as “hardcore techno,” shares a lot in common with metal and punk, namely in that it is loud, abrasive and incredibly annoying to the uninitiated. The small but dedicated international gabber scene has produced a few breakout acts in it’s 25 years of existence, notably groups like Angerfist and Rotterdam Terror Corps and perhaps the next great candidate for breakout success is Scotland’s own irascible duo, Scottish Gabber Punx.

Featuring Rumana Kapadia and James Chinnery (formerly of Scottish hardcore punk stalwarts Sectioned) the group has made a name for themselves by, in their own words, “combining terrible ’90s dance music with gabber and a radical leftist agenda”. The result is something similar to 100 Gecs getting beaten up in an alleyway by Trap Them while Eiffel 65 cheer them on. Sound enticing? Horrifying? It doesn’t matter, this Scottish duo truly does not give a fuck.

The group is premiering their new EP, Scum of the Colonies, which is lyrically informed by Jamie’s Scottish heritage and Rumana’s experience as the daughter of Indian immigrants. In the band’s own words: “This EP is unapologetic and will shove its queer leftist antics down the throat of anyone listening.” Good golly, Ms. Molly!

The post Scottish Gabber Punx To Release New EP “Scum of the Colonies” appeared first on Decibel Magazine.