Friday, January 29, 2016

Album Review: Coffin Birth - 'Necrotic Liquefacation'


Following in the arterial spray of way awesome Australian powerviolence/grind peers like Extortion, Agents of Abhorrence, Manhunt and (less awesome) Captain Cleanoff, comes the next great export Coffin Birth. Though they share a paragraph and continent with good company, their sound is more akin to the aural battering of Insect Warfare, with the striding hooks and groove of Abuse/Noise-era Wormrot surgically stitched in. Goddamn that's a lot of name dropping. Their 2014 nine track / nine minute collection of vitriol titled Necrotic Liquefacation is as fucking enjoyable a pummeling as a pummeling could be. The production is dense and impellent, never really allowing itself to indulge in the cliche' ulterior of the genre which would be taking full advantage of their thickness and slowing things down to doomy crawls - by NOT doing that they really keep things interesting and make every minute count. Not to mention the fantastic catchiness of actual rhythm breaks used sparingly enough to make the whole record stand out from what could otherwise be misconstrued as another almost mediocre gore-grind act at first and second listens (in sound not visual format) . One could eeeeasily lose their shit half-way through either or both 'Pixelated Beyond Recognition' and '101 Ways Not To Become A Martyr'... There's even a triumphant battering of riffage in the middle of closer 'Avian Anthrax Terror Attack'. Necrotic Liquefacation is belligerent, driving and playful all at the same time; like being sexually assaulted by a Grizzly Bear - so I've heard. If I'd had known about it and was making best of lists at the time this fucker would have wound up somewhere at the top of the heap back in 2014 (somewhere between Gridlink's Longhena and Cloud Rat's Blind River - more name dropping!!!). It's really good, and I'm not even all that huge an Insect Warfare fan (gulp)! No new ground being broken or boundaries being pushed, but a good execution and revitalizing of a sound that some of us may be growing numb to. Check it out hither: https://coffinbirthgrind.bandcamp.com/album/necrotic-liquefaction

Monday, January 25, 2016

Concert Experience: Fuck The Facts with Nequient and The Ox King @ The LiveWire Lounge - 09.03.15


Sorry for the delay here, I've had this one in my queue for some time just never got around to the proof reading. Fuck The Facts; I've wanted to really be into Fuck The Facts for a long time, but there was always something in the way. I totally dig their approach, their sound, their diversity and experimentation, but they've never come out with something I've been able to sink my teeth into from start to finish. As with most Grind bands I think they shine brightest in an EP format; but that's not to say that their full lengths aren't wickedly entertaining to indulge in. Yet - to be annoyingly vague - while I think their songs are well crafted and propulsive, I think there is a lack of punch to their music. Fuck The Facts take their songs to unpredictable boundaries of the Grindcore blueprint and often beyond, but there is never that moment where the whirlwind synchronizes into a solid impact. Perhaps it's there and I'm just not hearing it in the production, which often highlights other aspects of their sound amazingly like this. Their latest (respectable) DIY effort Desire Will Rot is a fantastic and furious journey into all of the aforementioned characteristics that Fuck The Facts toy with successfully, the only negative to it is that the album just isn't loud enough - or I'm just going deaf, which is also a legit possibility.

This theory was personally justified when they brought their A-game to the LiveWire lounge last week. FTF sounded twice as thick and 'punchy' than they do digitally or on wax - as is no surprise, but music this technically precise and layered is often a troubling feat to duplicate live. Fuck The Facts sounded amazing - and presented as a foursome rather than the five articled to have recorded their latest LP - not that the fifth member's absence (Johnny Ibay) was noticeable audibly - because they treaded forth like touring veterans who truly enjoy the experience they've been able to grant themselves all these years and every song purged forth was a roided up rendering of it's original studio form - which in turn changed my perspective on their discography - live show = success.  Fuck The Facts came across as a band unconcerned with the size of the room or number of people that they play in front of - the performance felt as though it would have been the same being televised nationally as opposed to playing second fiddle to a man named Gobbo whose birthday seemed to be the reason for the season that night (the entire evening was billed as such). I didn't look behind me all that often during the show, but there seemed to be more people buying shots for the birthday boy back at the bar than there were paying appropriate attention to the catharsis happening on stage - their loss.

When the set was over the group cleaned up and ran on back to the front to unpack and man their merch booth - road dog style. I hadn't picked up the new album yet as I was waiting for the show so my money could go directly to them, and when I offered them the $30 for their $10 CD and told them to keep the change for gas, lead vocalist Melanie Mongeon was cool enough to throw a whole bunch of other shit my way to make sure I got my monies worth. I walked out that night finally converted to a Fuck The Facts fan; as my brain now seems to be able to fill the gaps of what was previously lacking on their LP's with memories of their live performance sound. It's all the more awesome because being a fan of FTF is a rewarding reap; as they're a band that truly enjoys making new music, and making it often and making it accessible - with ten full lengths and nine EP's and compilations I'm going to enjoy catching up on what I don't already have.

Openers The Ox King sounded huge and major label with their mix of Early Graves meets Converge hardcore/crust, and Nequient - who treated the evening as their record release party - leaned a bit heavy on Death Metal stylings for my taste - though their sound tracked on the actual Infinite Regress album is way more Weekend Nachos-esque than it came across live, so - my bad.  Check out their bandcamp sites below:

https://the-ox-king.bandcamp.com/

http://nequient.bandcamp.com/

https://fuckthefacts.bandcamp.com/

And this is bad ass: