Album Review: Pig Destroyer - Mass & Volume

There are a few reasons why people shouldn't shit all over this thing - which is what I think some may want to do with it when they hear it for the first time, because I have a feeling it's going to go under alot of people's heads. Yes, under people's heads. Like the 20 ton prehistoric worm that it sounds like, burrowing through hard mantle and hollowing out a once vibrant and functioning planet. This is not the ultra-violent thrash tinged grindcore we are used to experiencing from Pig Destroyer. This is potentially the most aptly named EP ever, 'Mass & Volume'. Two tracks in doom vein that plunge you into a throbbing void of amp worship and blown bass cabinets.
The first reason to accept this for what it is, even if it isn't what you want to hear from these guys is that it's Pig Destroyer, more impressively it's Pig Destroyer festering out of their usual comfort zone and experimenting in slowing the fuck down, God bless 'em. Second is that it's a gift. Nobody knew that this slow piston through the gizzard was even going to be released until the moment they decided to do it. Yeah it costs the listener ten clams but it's cool-ass new experimental material that prior to this was collecting dust on a shelf next to a jar of fremented baby heads and most likely would have never been heard, so it's a gift to the fans. And more importantly, ALL of the proceeds made for this album go towards the college fund of the daughter of the recently deceased Pat Egan - the long time director of retail sales for Relapse Records. So not only is it for a good cause, but one of the best one's out there, the child of a friend.
Shortly after the release of Phantom Limb the band occasionally talked about these two tracks in various interviews and whatforth as a couple of long dirge ridden songs they knocked out with extra studio time during the Phantom Limb sessions. They never spoke of what their intentions were to do with them or if they ever would be released. Per the group: "This EP was written and recorded during the final day of the Phantom Limb sessions with unexpected extra studio time and resources. In the following years, with Natasha being released on its own and Brian no longer being in the band, our intentions of releasing Mass & Volume basically evaporated. However, looking back now, Mass & Volume serves as a great epilogue to that particular era of the band."
The first track, 'Mass & Volume', is an epic slab of monolithic guitars trodding along with the velocity of a slug, weaving in and out of Hull's feedback. Beneath it a subtle layer of ominous keyboards fluxes frequencies and effects which can only be heard occasionally when the tree trunk bass strings stop their throbbing vibrations from each slow strike. The 19+ minute song feels more like a drone track most times than anything more doom laden. The song never really goes anywhere, so if you're not into either of those aforementioned genres and like your stuff more superficial than chances are you already don't like this band and/or you probably just won't get it. I'm into alot of weird shit (musically - ahem), and my album collection ain't exactly over-saturated with any kind of Doom Metal, in fact it's pretty much the opposite of that. Off the top of my head the only other three bands that match the RPM's of this first track that I indulge in are Lycia, Gnaw Their Tongues, and strict selections of Type O Negative.
So while the Evoken afficianado may turn his nose up at this for someone like me it bates the appetite. Is it all the more cool being a fan of the band and hearing them do something in a different realm sans Natasha? Absolutely. I'd say the best way to experience Mass & Volume is to crank your stereo to 13 in a blacked out room, with speakers powerful enough to rattle the frames off your wall....naked. As simple as it is it creates a world around you if you let it, and by the time Hayes comes in with his indicipherable effects-laden vocals it will sound like there is something there in the dark with you, trying to tell you something you don't want to hear.
The second song on the EP, 'Red Tar' - though sonically the same - is a bit more doom-traditional and riff oriented, opening up in the end with an ever so subtle and enlightening riff that only comes together to be heard when the song is over. I enjoyed the EP, a bit more stripped down than 'Natasha', which was the last time the group did something like this during the 'Terrifyer' sessions, but I'd reckon to say that if you enjoyed that you would enjoy this. To the hardcore Doom Metal fans, who have a huge cache' of bands to compare this thing to, it may be less than mediocre.  But to a guy like me, who loves seeing bands normally confined to narrow genres step out and do what they want and then just put it out there, it helps fill that niche of slow, disturbing, heavy and ambient that my collection sometimes lacks. Stream and buy the album here

Album Review: Early Graves - 'Red Horse'

It's interesting to me how much of a band's identity lies within their vocalist. I suppose alot of it has to do with it being the most versatile of instruments amongst the typical heavy metal arsenal. It paints with the largest brush strokes and gives the sound of a band's music most of it's character. And while most grindcore and powerviolence vocalists generally follow the same dynamic when it comes to delivery and range, I suppose one could argue that no two vocalists, even within the narrow confines of the aforementioned styles of extreme music, are the same. Some groups that were forced to change vocalists for whatever reason at some point in their career are even categorized into eras based on it.
There are only a handful of bands that walk within their lines that I'd never want to see wander into a different direction or "progress", but most of those exist outside the world of extreme music. Within the genre I always welcome a change or experimentation, and I always find it interesting when a band is forced to change their sound and adapt due to whatever circumstances may have transgressed. Those circumstances could not be more tragic than what transgressed with Early Graves, and the adaption could not be more poetic or fitting.
I got into Early Graves through their second album 'Goner'. It was smack dab in the middle of winter, one of those cold, biting days where the sun is out and twice as blinding because of all the dried up snow, everything is covered in that layer of salt and the air is dry. I was going through a bit of a lull, there was nothing new out there that interested me but I was longing to hear something. I'd heard of Early Graves and ended up buying their album on a couple of 30 second samples I'd heard on Amazon, I guess I was feeling desperate and thought what the hell - sounded alright, and Kurt Ballou was involved so why not? I tossed the thing into my Ipod and sulked off to the gym. I guess the best analogy to equate that experience to would be picking a fight with the wrong person, because by the second track that album had spun my head around. The production was muddy and chaotic, a swirl of raw noise adhesed together with layer upon layer of feedback, there were times where the whole thing sounded like it was just going to completely fall apart and not be able to salvage itself, but it always held together strong and that aspect simply added to the charisma of the record. That first listen was a cathartic experience to say the least. I soon backtracked to the first album 'We: The Guillotine' - which is sonically almost the same album, just loaded with fat. Goner got in, scrambled your brains and got out, probably couldn't even walk through the cutting room floor on that one. It was a strategic move to trim the fat for that second album because it's short running time helped make the record a clenched fist ready to be thrown.
On the subsequent tour following the release, lead vocalist Makh Daniels was killed in a tragic van accident. When wounds started to mend and the band made the decision to soldier forth, long time friend of the group John Strachan stepped up to fill in as vocalist. John also sang for tourmates Funeral Pyre, his move into the vocalist position for Early Graves would be both admittedly comfortable for the rest of the band, and fitting as the album - with it's occasional quiet instrumental interlude and possible lyrical interpretation - can at times come off as an homage to Daniels, and nobody wants a stranger leading that charge. Had Makh's life never been tragically cut short, say he left the band on his own merit and EG still wrote the exact same record I may not be feeling that homage, I'd just call it a step in a different direction, so that vibe, to me, is based on the events I've known to take place - the end result is up to any listeners own subjective interpretation as there are no blatantly obvious nods here, tastefully done I must say.
Now let's get to the album, 'Red Horse'. It is not better than 'Goner'. It is much more controlled, reigned in....Dare I say it? Mature. The band has admitted to wanting to evolve, to move forward. I welcome the change, but it was not forced or molded around the new vocalist, as the clear acoustic passages and pleasant inspirational outros that are scattered about this record don't have any singing over them. In fact, the vocals, while very different than the dry throated monotone barking of Daniels - still function in the same dynamic. The range varies little and the message of desperation and aggravation is still there, but the softer parts do offer a pleasant contrast to the muddy chaos of sound the band has stuck with since their debut - this contrast offers uplift in a world that rains anvils, and it works. After listening to Early Graves' first two albums I kind of thought them to be one of those bands that does what they do and that's it, 8 albums in and the formula hasn't changed - so it was nice to be proved wrong in such a pleasant way. The first track 'Skinwalker' opens with a quiet intro that builds up into a bouncy little cliffhanger riff, whose feedback pulls us into trademark Early Graves punk-grind-power riffage. My only complaint here being that the sound actually seems to get quieter when the song gets faster, something that happens I understand, as things aren't being hit as hard when they're moving quicker, but it's something I would have liked to see a producer catch and prevent, unless of course they were just going for that real-live feel - which is always a viable excuse I suppose. The next two tracks, 'Misery' and 'Days Grow Cold' honestly kind of come and go, the latter stepping out a little more because of the acoustic outro - which leads us to the title track 'Red Horse', a bouncy yet driving little number that achieves exactly what it's supposed to as the whole thing sounds like galloping through a field littered with people off-ing each other in record numbers Braveheart style. 'Pure Hell' is Early Graves doing what they do best, especially when the thing ups gears about a minute and a half in from fast to Plaid and the floor just gives way from beneath the music as it turns into a cacaphony of grindcore fighting black metal in Tokyo. The final track 'Quietus', is arguably the best track on the album, clocking in at just over 6 minutes the song careens in with that same tempo the rest of the album likes to coast in and then downshifts for a fist throwing cadence during the chorus. 'Quietus' sounds like everything else on the album until those strings slow their vibration halfway through and an inspiring yet desperate instrumental outro carries the album to it's close.
Now, this could be good or bad depending on how you look at it, but with the band's raw, sonic density and writing style - they've always at times kind of sounded like Converge, no shit considering Kurt Ballou has been involved with the band, the influence is obvious. However, with the addition of the new singer, it sounds at times on this record almost exactly like Converge, especially on 'Death Obsessed' and a couple of other places scattered about. There are worse groups to emulate noooooo doubt, as I love Converge and all, but I don't need another Converge, I don't want another Coverge, and I don't believe they were setting out to do that, but that's just the way it turned out, at least to my cochlear implants.
Early Graves went through some serious shit and with that in mind this album is a winner. It's enjoyable - but for me it lingers a bit in mediocre waters. I had zero expectations for it, didn't expect it to suck and I didn't expect it to blow me away either, as I kind of went into it with the same mentality as when I first bought 'Goner' on a complete whim. "oh look, Early Graves came out with a new album a couple of months ago" kind of thing. It's good, it would be awesome as maybe a four song EP or something (Skinwalker, Apocalyptic Nights, Pure Hell, Quietus), but it's still only 8 tracks and a damn short album for the most part. It lacked something for me, but that doesn't mean I'd dissuade another from wanting to hear it, as I can see where for some it may move mountains. I'm going to work on making these reviews a whole lot shorter.

Album Review: Napalm Death - 'Utilitarian'

Anybody interested enough to read this shitty review probably knows the story already, having heard it from every critic and fan in cyberspace everytime these guys release something. Band invents the genre and coins the term 'Grindcore', band supposedly loses it's way four albums into their career in an exploration of influences and sound, and then band is rebirthed...Well I wouldn't call it so much a rebirth as it was more like a violent bursting forth from the womb, eviscerating it's host on the way out and never looking back. Napalm Death took the "slower", industrialized sonic density of their sound from the mid-nineties (often referred to as the "Facepalm" years by elitist naysayers) and infused it into the speed and raw brutality of the bands early career noise in a stride that began with 2000's 'Enemy Of The Music Business'. Utilitarian is the group's 7th record since the so-called 'rebirth' and 14th over-all not including cover albums, and it is the sonic equivalent of an 800 Horse Power Steamroller barelling down on you at 80 MPH in a dead-end alleyway. The album is loud, suffocating, and magnanimous. The production on Utilitarian is clean but the guitars still have enough of that reverb layer to make that trademark tone instantly recognizable as Napalm Death even before Barney starts barking all over the madness. And he sounds more pissed off than ever, and more comfortable than ever, to the point where you start to wonder if this is just how the brummie talks these days. 2009's 'Time Waits For No Slave' was a good album, but my biggest complaint is it's length. It feels like a majority of the songs on that disc could have been cut in half, and probably should have been as it clocks in at over 50 minutes. I also wonder if that's why the amazingly thrashtastic 'De-Evolution Ad Nauseum' is strategically placed as the album's closer to suck you back in. If you're one of those people who can maintain through 50 minutes of that kind of intensity without a problem then that's just the dulled down state you live in all the time and you're being robbed of the kind of release this music can give you when dosed correctly. 'Utilitarian' is a shorter album, and it's peppered with the kind of subtle experimentation that helps create checkpoints between the blasting and forces songs to stand out even on first listen. The album opens with an instrumental intro, which works because it's not something Napalm Death over-use on every album, and it does exactly what it's supposed to do: help prepare your central nervous system to adjust to the kind of sounds you are going to be hearing at a much faster pace. Then 'Error In Signals' lunges into an all-out grind assault, Greenway's rabid bark exchanging lines with Mitch Harris' wet shriek - a formula that never gets tired throughout the duration of the record. The utilization of instruments and guest vocals that would normally be alien to grindcore always helps to keep the sound fresh, as was the case on both 2005's 'The Code Is Red' and 2006's 'Smear Campaign'. On 'Everyday Pox' there is the shriek of a berzerking saxophone weaving in and out of the cacaphony of churning riffs and savage percussion. Almost sounds like a goose getting pummeled by Herrera's double bass. It only adds to the intensity. One of the few times the band let their boot off your throat happens in the grandiose middle of 'Fall On Their Swords', where Greenway seems to channel the congealed gay love child of Peter Steele and Burton C. Bell in a goth baritone verberating over tribal toms and Jesu-esque shoegaze string plucking. 'Quarintined' is arguably the catchiest track on the record, where the cadence like yell of 'Quarantined' changes it's pattern over striding guitars during the chorus before stomping itself back into d-beat grindcore, and 'Nom de Guerre' is a relentless blast-beat ridden destroyer that burns itself out in a little over a minute, in remastered classic Napalm Death style. As with the aforementioned 'De-Evolution Ad Nauseum', ND save one of the best for last in 'A Gag Reflex', a sonically bad-assed swaggering riff opens and closes the track leaving you hungry for more - and then you get it in the bonus song 'Everything In Mono' - one of those "bonus" tracks that they must have thrown in there because they knew it was too good to leave off but had to put it as a bonus after so many arm chair quarterback losers such as myself bitched about Time Waits For No Slave being too damn long - because a bonus track doesn't count, right? Anywho, the track is a sonic anvil falling on you over and over again like John Madden running a Looney Toons cartoon, especially the (Metallica) 'One' -esque middle tirade. God forgive me for that reference.
And those are just the checkpoints! The rest is a filler-free pummeling of the ears. Forget all that phase bullshit, this collosus stands as possibly one of their best albums. I guess to put it short (toooooo late), if you dug Smear Campaign, with it's speed, heaviness, and sonic clarity - this is the closest thing to it in sound, only the writing and variety within the album surpasses it. Here's to another 14 albums please.

Album Review: Beaten To Death - Xes and Strokes

I stumbled across a video from these guys for the title track off of their debut album Xes and Strokes. It's basically the five of them rocking out in what is probably a rented out rehearsal space. The song held my attention long enough to win me over at the one minute mark when the melody-tinged drop chord grind does a sudden shift of gears and turns into a palm-muted stompfest that makes you want to boogie the fuck out, complete with bass and drum breakdown. The band separates themselves from the pack by utilizing a lot of high end melody within their sound, riffs that wouldn't be alien to an Arch Enemy song if you tore away the blastbeats pushing it forward from behind- it works for them, and even more so because of it's juxtaposition to the big ugly fat guitars and guttered out bass that keep the band's sound down and dirty, think of that first Korn album on trucker speed (two for two on the bad metal references). For me personally, some of the best moments in Grindcore happen when a band's disfigured and violent sound breaks away from it's own grip for just a brief moment, and opens up the wound enough to show a glimpse of something almost beautiful within the carnage. The almost majestic riffage towards the end of Brutal Truth's 'Dead Smart', or the desperate vulnerability that's exposed both musically and vocally in the second half of Pig Destroyer's 'Towering Flesh' are good examples. BTD accomplish this at the end of 'A Souless Alarm', when the grind halts to an eerie harmonic that is built upon with orchestrally choreographed volume knobbery (think Metallica's To Live Is To Die -HAT TRICK!!!), and then rolls forward into a percussively driven jam-out moment at the end. While I do compliment the band on messing around with melody and still keeping it grind, the formula just isn't strong enough to keep my attention throughout the entire album, as some tracks just fall into the mediocre after the half-way point once I got used to hearing it and I may as well be listening to the monotony that is Leng Tche'. But at the same time there are moments when the music makes you want to move, and sometimes the simplicity of the punk formula just fuckin' works the best, as evidenced in their opener "Pointless Testament", the actual music lasts less than a minute and the track beats you down with really just one main riff. "On Running" is another bad ass tune that works well mainly because it's still fresh early in the album and teeters back and forth between a happy little blast-tainted melody and stuttering breakdown power-chording (I know it ain't a word).  The vocals are pretty straightforward and typical for the genre, low to high, with little variance at both ranges, but the emotion is there. The tracks on the album vary from just over a minute to just under three, so with only nine tracks the band does a great job of not wearing out their welcome and wrapping it up in 18 minutes and some change. Production is top notch, and the drums sound clean and powerful against the downtuned guitars and dirty bass. I get the feeling that Beaten To Death got the final product to sound exactly the way they wanted it to. I wonder how many groups hit the studio unable to match the sounds in their head and end up resting on their laurels or embracing it and changing a bit of the writing to fit into the sound better. The band also must have some good pals that majored in film editing because they've got three high quality straight-up cool videos available for your perusing on youtube where it's them just grinding their shit, including the aforementioned "Pointless Testament". I always dig when a group puts so much work into a video for a song that short. These dudes aren't anything I'd rave about in line at the next Weekend Nachos show but they are still good at what they do and aren't weighing down the scene with run-of-the-mill mediocrity, I'd definitely recommend them to anyone looking for something decent and new. I think Beaten To Death is one of those bands that will either win me over or lose me on their next release, and as of now I'm looking forward to hear where they go. Check out the video for 'Xes and Strokes' below, and then follow the links to watch 'Pointless Testimony' and 'Winston Churchill': It's a fun lil' watch.

'Why You Do This' - a documentary of life on the road as an extreme musician.

Car Bomb. For those of you unprevy to this one-albumed loogie of hate, know that they are a musical force to be reckoned with.  Spawned in the wake of the emergence of the ridiculously pigeon-holed genre-term "Math Metal", this four piece created an albums worth of controlled yet spasmatic ferocity the likes of which raises them above the visionless 'Calculating Infinity' Clones pissing all over the creative original sound. Sure the influence can be heard, but Car Bomb abandons anything even close to resembling a hook or rhythm and instead comes off as a very jagged, very large pill to swallow, arguably more difficult to absorb then even some of the most unhinged Grindcore - arguably. The sound is so sharp, and so combustible, that instead of resembling 11 different tracks it's almost just one long compilation of fits and seizures. A soundtrack to the spewing forth of schizophrenic hate.
How does a band like this survive? Well, seeing as how they hadn't released anything in over 5 years I wasn't sure that they had, until I stumbled upon a documentary titled 'Why You Do This'. Just over an hour long, this short little film (put together by Car Bomb vocalist Michael Dafferner) follows the band on the road as they tread on and continue playing their undigestible brand of music despite what seems to be only a continuing series of disenchanting pit-falls and realizations. It's the usual run-of-the-mill kind of things any underground band has to deal with - playing to crowds of three or four people, automotive difficulties, being ripped off by club owners, continuously losing more money than you make - but for those who've never had the experience it makes for an interesting watch. The narraration throughout the film is mostly pessimistic, as though the whole project itself came to fruition as a result of half a decades worth of being jaded. If you don't take it as tongue-in-cheek halfway thru the doc you may find yourself telling your monitor to "just fuckin' quit then", but by the end you'll see it's not the answer that you're sticking around for but really the search for the answer. The film also uses Lamb of God and Gojira as examples of two groups who were able to claw their way 'tooth and nail' out of the underground to headline their own tour and earn an opening slot playing for Metallica. Poor examples in my opinion as both those bands earn their living on the other side of extreme music's line in the sand due to their sound being so accessible in comparison to a group like Carbomb. Lamb Of God is par for the course with a band like Slipknot, damn good at what they do, but still just a rehash of riffs and ideas that worked years before when Meshuggah, Sepultura and Slayer carved their paths (Phil Anselmo called and said he wants his tough-mumblings-over-tougher-riffs act back Mr. Blythe), but I digress. They were probably the only ones willing or available to contribute interviews and without them there would be an air of hoplessness throughout the film. The doc also includes interviews with members of Bella Morte, The Chariot, and Soilent Green, not to mention a spot-on 'why I do this' summarization about playing extreme music from ex-Death/current Charred Walls of the Damned drummer Richard Christy. The film is an eye opener for anybody that hasn't tried traveling across the country in a shit-box van w/trailer, and makes you thankful that groups like this don't toss their gear into the Ol' Miss while driving over it and call it a day. Can you imagine a world without violent basement shows where the fuse blows every song and Hepatitis C creeps like grave moss through bloody knuckes and abrased skin in mock-jungle temperatures? As I type this from the comfort of the home I own and live in comfortably I tell you that I cannot. So god bless those cursed with the passion for playing extreme music, and sacrificing their own comfort to tread across this country and scrape by with no expectations of ever seeing a light at the end of a tunnel or a multi-million dollar record contract not to mention even a mere 2 minutes on the radio. The film doesn't break any new ground, nor does it necessarily draw you in - but much like the Discordance Axis novella 'Compiling Autumn', the fact that it exists is a bonus. Fans of the scene and the band should consider themselves fortunate that someone was passionate enough about what they do to compile the resources and take the time needed to create it and make it available without profiting. So you should take the time to watch the doc if you're into the scene at all. Check it out below and order yourself a copy here.

Incomprehensible Grumblings: Rumors and News - Nasum, Gridlink, Pig Destroyer, Burnt By The Sun, DEP

Nasum has inspired it's agonal breath, one last post-coital death spasm before the last nail is driven into the coffin and it's set on fire and cast away into the ocean. The Swedish Grinders who defibrillated the genre are making one final little go around of the states kicking things off in Chicago on May 18th. Taking over vocal duties for the mini-tour will appropriately be Rotten Sound vocalist Keijo Niinimaa. Experimental Grind legends Brutal Truth and seminal hardcore act Dropdead will be opening on select dates. Check out the bands Facebook page for show info: http://www.facebook.com/NasumBand. Gridlink has confirmed via social media sites that work is being done on the band's third album, tentatively titled 'Longhena'.  A recent posting on the band's Facebook page states "The third GridLink record is going to surprise some of our old fans. Not sure if that will be good or bad. LOL -  And no, it will not be a Facepalm Death Harmony Greed Corruption Exit Wound Killing kind of surprise." The band recently posted that tentative song titles include 'The Last Raven', 'Claymore', 'A Bitter Obligation', 'Basilisk Raid Cradle', 'Longhena', and 'Sunlight Fragment In Snow'. After showing up on extreme music 'most anticipated' lists for the last three years Pig Destroyer guitarist Scott Hull recently confirmed that a new album will be released this year in the general region of the Spring/Summer season. Drummer Brian Harvey parted ways with the group for reasons undisclosed to the public and in July of last year the band announced Misery Index drummer Adam Jarvis to be his replacement. Hull states that the album contains some of the band's strongest work to date. Pig Destroyer were recently invited to play the Music Northwest Fest in Portland where they premiered three new tracks, see what you can make out from the clusterfuck (in a good way) here. The Argonauts, the new Jersey band recently formed from members of Burnt By The Sun, Dillinger Escape Plan and The Postman Syndrome, have recently posted a 55 second practice snippet of one of their new tracks. The group is currently playing local shows and recording a new album. Dillinger Escape Plan vocalist Greg Puciato has joined forces with ex-Sepultura/current Soulfly frontman Max Cavalera to collaborate on an album of "thrash brutality" that the group has quoted is a sort of 'Nailbomb 2' - type project. Mars Volta percussionist Cedric Bixlar-Zavala and Converge bassist Nate Newton are rumored to round out the as-of-yet unnamed project.

Book Review: Compiling Autumn: Making Discordance Axis' The Inalienable Dreamless

According to Andrew Childers, grindcore aficianado and master-mind of the acclaimed pack-leading blog Grind and Punishment, he was approached by the now defunct Discordance Axis vocalist Jon Chang to pen a short book about the creation of the band's classic benchmark album 'The Inalienable Dreamless'. Per Mr. Childers, Chang offered to financially back the project and the band supported it by contributing their points of view to the fevered sessions that would unforseeably redefine the grindcore genre years after it's initial release on Hydra Head records. Six months later, we have the novella 'Compiling Autumn: Making Discordance Axis' The Inalienable Dreamless'.
The bottom line here is that 36 published pages about this album is 36 published pages more than I thought I'd ever see in my lifetime. It was Boner City in Grindville when Decibel Magazine did a 6 page spread on the album as it's 'Hall Of Fame' entry for the March 2009 Grindcore Issue (a special issue that I'm pushing should happen every time Napalm Death releases a studio album, am I the only one sick of hearing about how great Mastodon and Skeletonwitch are?). So this thing could have been written by Sloth and Chunk and I'd still shell out the measly $8 that they were actually apologizing for charging for it. And the cherry on top of the whole thing is that 100% of the book's profits are going to the Tsunami Relief Fund for Japan. Now just take a moment to think about that would you please? Chang could've used the cash to fund his current blur-grind hybrid outfit Gridlink, or even bought a fishing net full of sci-fi Anime and underground Hentai DVD's, but instead he opted to go the route of helping support relief for the country that he's proclaimed has inspired him through most of his creative career. Any fan would be a fool not to buy this book on that merit alone.
The book is expectedly well written and offers previously unheard insight into the creation of the landmark album, including interviews with first time producer Jon D'Uva and co-owner of Hydra Head Records Aaron Turner, not to mention band members Dave Witte, Jon Chang, and Rob Marton as well as testimonials from peers in the genre. Everything from the writing process, lyrical and thematic inspiration, recording techniques, and even a bit of the origin of DA are all covered in this satisfyingly short, written documentary.
There are moments throughout the book that touch on how the band's first album, 'Ulterior', came to be - inspired by what Chang imagined the album after Napalm Death's 'From Enslavement To Obliteration' should have sounded like. When the author occasionally dips into the early years of the band I kept expecting to hear about the influence that Anal Cunt had on the group's sound (as was touched upon in the aforementioned Decibel article). It was at these moments where I had to remind myself that I wasn't reading a biography on the group and how they came to be, but a book more on the pinnacle of their all-too-short career and eventually how they came to be no longer.
Upon hearing about the book and it's release I pathetically retrograted into the 16 year old fan boy that I used to be about bands and music nobody else really thought mattered. The fact that Chang came up with the idea to do this and funded it himself shows an artist's excitement in his own work that fans of that person and his creativity absolutely love to benefit from. Especially in a genre that is so limited in the merchandise they can offer, because it just ain't popular enough to really turn a profit (I've still got an empty space on the wall in my garage waiting for a Pig Destroyer poster to one day be produced). Kudos to the band and everyone that gave their input to make the book that much more intimate, and golf claps to Andrew for taking the time and putting on the pads to shoulder a project like this delegated to him from a figure that is quickly becoming a Godfather in the scene. Buy it.