VII's Top 10 Pig Destroyer Songs

This year, the world is supposed to be blessed with the awesomeness of a new Pig Destroyer album. After approximately 367 years (okay, only 4), the Baltimore grind Gods are finally, finally releasing new material. And while there isn't an official release date yet, I'm still counting down the days. So, I thought I would celebrate my excitement by creating a list of my 10 favorite Pig Destroyer songs. This list is most likely subject to change sometime in the future, but for now, here are my favorites. Agree/disagree/troll in the comments below.

10: Natasha - "Terrifyer/Natasha": "Natasha" is a song that most grind bands could attempt to do, but just wouldn't be able to do as well as Pig Destroyer. This 37 minute(!) doom/sludge epic is a truly experimental piece for the band. Half of the music on it is ambient, or found sounds. The rest comprising of something akin to Godflesh if they went all funeral doom. And Pig Destroyer makes this work, to me, because the band already was so good at capturing misery, disturbing imagery, and sadness through JR's lyrics. Originally released as the 2nd disc to "Terrifyer", but was intended as it's own separate release, "Natasha" is a very intriguing piece of music that definitely sticks out in the bands catalog. But yeah, the falsetto vocals in the middle do get a chuckle out of me.

9: Piss Angel - "Prowler In The Yard": Nostalgia factor for me, because this was the first Pig Destroyer song that I ever heard, as I'm sure it was for a lot of people who looked this band up on Youtube for the first time. The final song on the grotesque, conceptual masterpiece, "Prowler In The Yard", "Piss Angel" is, interestingly, probably the most accessible song on the album(subtracting the ambient 2nd half). Killer riffs from Scott are all up in this song; I fucking love the use of harmonics in the 3rd riff, and that phone ringing sample always makes my skin crawl a little.

Bandcamp Artist Of The Week: False Light

Hell yeah, bringing this series back! Did you miss it? I hope so, if not, fuck you! Kidding, I love you all. Anyways, I'm super excited right now, because I just stumbled upon this excellent band called False Light. A relatively new band from Charleston, SC, and I knew just from the first couple seconds of the first song that I was going to love this band. Tough as nails grindcore with some great breakdowns, and a full, bassy recording. Excellent vocals too, the dude really makes his voice flow well with the riffs being played. Very, very short release though. I've listened to it four times through just while writing this. So if I had one complaint, it's that I'm left wanting more. Hopefully they'll get some more stuff recorded soon, but until then, blast this shit loud!!

~VII

Six Brew Bantha - "S/T" Album Review

It's a beautiful thing when you hear a band really come into there own and break out from demo quality, low-fi, basement recordings and produce a record that stands heads ands shoulders above everything they've done prior. Not that there's anything wrong with having your music sound like it was recorded in someones smelly, dirty hole of a living space, but in Six Brew Bantha's case this new album absolutely facefucks everything they've done prior.
In the past, SBB always came off to me as more of a grimy mincecore band. Again, due to the recording quality and their rather silly band name (lets be real here). Their split with Archagathus from last year did display impressive grind chops though, and left me impressed, but not blown away. This new album however, truly shows what SBB are capable, which is more advanced than anything Agathocles, Archagathus or LT. Dan have/could produce, and shows that this Canadian trio can grind with the best of them. The album starts off very unassuming though, with some studio trickery used to make the recording sound very flat and, well, shitty. But after some fucking around, the band and production explodes into pure awesomeness, and it's all good from then on. The production on this album is just stellar. It's perfect, absolutely wonderful. The guitars are just beefy, especially when the palm muted riffs come into play. I honestly thought this band had a bass player until just a few days ago. The drummer too, holy fuck, this guy can blast. And that snare drum, hot damn. More grind bands need to learn to appreciate a poppy, clangy snare drum. The songs on here all seem well thought out and crafted too, and display a lot of fastcore traits like stop/start riffs and constant tempo changes (which is an easy way to my heart). Occasional grooves pop up, which is always welcome, but for the most part it's just straight blasting and unrelenting brutality. Overall, SBB really have created a great grind album, one of the best I've heard all year. Do yourself a favor and listen/buy this album ASAP. And big up's to everyone that donated to the band after their van crash.

Rating: Strong 8.5/10

~VII

New Coke Bust Song!

Straight edge, D.C, hardcore band Coke Bust (featuring Chris Moore of Magrudergrind on drums), have just debuted a brand new track entitled, "Pain and Suffering" from their upcoming split with Vaccine. I've never really given much time to the band, but this song is pretty kick ass. It has a hardcore punk beginning that eventually morphs into more of a grindcore sound. I should probably join the cool-kids-club already and get a few of this bands records, and I'm frothing at the mouth to hear new material from Vaccine. The split 7" will be available later this year from Drugged Conscience and Refuse Records. In addition, they also have a live 7" coming out sometime this summer. Keep a look out, and catch Coke Bust at Maryland Deathfest, if you're going. 

~VII

Operation Grindcore and DIY Noise Are Releasing A Cassette Of The Drip's Ripping New EP

Operation Grindcore is very proud to team up with DIY Noise for a cassette release of The Drip's new EP, "The Wasteland"! This EP is like a razor sharp katana to the jugular, and I'm very happy to help out some cool people and put this out. To my knowledge, there will be 50 cassettes released, and we will get about 20 to sell. This will be released very soon, and I'll do a post about how to purchase it! Until then, please follow The Drip on Facebook, listen to "The Wasteland" if you haven't already, and be prepared for their upcoming split 7", with a band you might have heard of. More on that later!

~VII

May 14th; The Day Deep Six Releases A Bunch Of Stuff

Deep Six, one of the best american hardcore/grind labels in the history of ever (fact), is dropping five hot hot records today! I'm sure you've all collectively gotten your underpants moist with excitement about the Weekend Nachos/Lack of Interest split. And why shouldn't you? It's a pairing of on of the best in modern hardcore, and one of the best in west coast powerviolence. Five tracks from each band on a 45 RPM piece of wax. The people who pre-ordered the record are getting green vinyl, limited to 100. I'm not sure how many are on black. I can't wait to spin this bad boy, and if you've ever wanted to see on of the members of Weekend Nachos deep, dark ass crack, you're in for a treat when you see the inside of the record sleeve.

Fans of fastcore should be all up on this Sidetracked/Self Inflicted split 7". Sidetracked are by far one of the best fastcore bands going right now, and anything Jay and co. put out is definitely going to be checked out by me. I haven't heard Self Inflicted, but I'm expecting awesomeness. 

Landmine Marathon are also putting out a self titled, 2-track 7" as well. I honestly haven't paid much attention at all to this band, but they seem like solid, semi-melodic death metal with a beastly lead singer (the only reason magazines like Revolver pay attention to them). I might check it out down the road. That cover art is done by Wes Borland of Limp Bizkit fame, by the way. 

This next 7" is a mysterious one. It's from a band called To The Point, who I've never heard of before. It's a one-sided 7", and Deep Six advertises it as sounding like Neanderthal and Septic Death, with powerviolence vocals. I also think that Chris Dodge might be involved, somehow. I'm really not sure, but this thing is limited to 100 copies, so buy or cry. Maybe. 

Lastly is a CD from a band called Cold War. I've never heard of them before, and the cover art is not leaving a good impression. It's supposed to be thrash/hardcore stuff, which is very hit-or-miss with me. 

~VII

Agents Of Abhorrence - "Earth.Water.Sun" Album Review

You know that feeling you get when you find an album that you think is truly great? It's a sensation that encompasses your whole body, like you're made out of warm jelly. It's something that doesn't happen often, for me at least, but when I do find an album that can give me that feeling, I just want to jump with joy an ecstasy. The latest album to do so is "Earth.Water.Sun", the magnum opus from the Australian grind power-trio, Agents Of Abhorrence. Now, this is by no means a current release. In fact, this was released in 2007. However, I feel that this band doesn't get talked about enough, and I'm going to try and do what I can to get as many people as possible to listen to this band. That being the case, this review might be, hell, it will be me ranting like a fanboy. This is probably going to be a long one. Deal wit it.

"Earth.Water.Sun" starts of very low-key with brief (very brief) ambient, untitled intro track. The calm before the storm. After a very short build-up, barely enough time for the listener to prepare for the onslaught, the band erupts into a pulsing, cymbal crashing, and discordant riff attack on the(almost) title track "Salt and Earth". Everything that is great about this release can be heard in this single song; excellent, razor sharp, discordant riffs, untouchable 1-2-1-2 blastbeat drumming, tasteful breakdowns for breathing room, and a vocalist that has one of the best voices I've heard, who can dish out both brutality and the memorable vocal patterns. I really should talk about the vocals more, because honestly they're one of my favorite things about this release. The delivery from vocalist, Grant Jones, is absolutely perfect for this band. It's a higher register, screechy scream. It reminds me of Jacob Bannon from Converge, if he has a little better enunciation. For the most part, he keeps this delivery throughout the release, occasionally going to a subtly different mid-range "growl" of sorts, but he knows just when to change it up to keep things interesting. He unfortunately is not in the band anymore, which is a real shame, since he really does fit the band perfectly.

 Every song on this release is top notch, no bullshit here. Save for the questionable six second track, "The Audacity of You", there is absolutely no filler here. Clocking in at a mere 9 minutes, there really isn't enough time on here for AoA to fuck around. They only deliver their best, going right for the throat of the listener. I guess I should mention at this point though that AoA is not an average sounding grindcore band. Guitarist, Ben Andrews also belongs to the math rock band, My Disco. He keeps the same twangy, skronky, bright, crunching sounding guitar tone and riffs in AoA, but translates them into  grind beautifully. I don't think he plays a single, ordinary chord throughout this entire record. Of course, comparisons to bands like Discordance Axis are unavoidable.

I really, truly, can't say anything band about "Earth.Water.Sun". It is a perfect serving of grindcore heaven, with everything being on point. Production, riffs, drums, vocals, energy, album length, everything. Yes, 9 minutes is an excellent length for a grind release. Grind bands should have no reason releasing a 30+ minute album, it overstays the welcome. I don't know what else I can say except listen to this record, listen to Agents of Abhorrence, and be sure not to miss them at Maryland Deathfest, and when they play in Brooklyn on May 29th with Needful Things (I'll be there, come on down!).

Rating: 10/10

~VII

Interview With Ross Gnarly (American Aftermath, Ritalin Attack)

Ross is a man that I have had the pleasure of buddying up with over the last month or so. He's a rad dude with a vast knowledge and great appreciation or extreme music. Hell, music in general. On the excellent blog site he founded, American Aftermath, you can find articles written about bands ranging from Dying Fetus, to Raekwon, to Chelsea Wolf. He's also behind several 1-man grind projects, the most active of which is Ritalin Attack. Me and him traded interviews (read his interview with me here). Full support!

Operation Grindcore: Let's start from the beginning. How did little Ross Gnarly first come into contact with heavy music? What was your musical evolution like?

Ross Gnarly: Well, I was raised on southern rock and country so there was a lot of Lynyrd Skynyrd, Charlie Daniels Band, Alabama and Hank Williams Jr. Even as an adult, I still love all of these bands. I guess I was in my early teens when someone handed me Slayer’s “Seasons In The Abyss.” I jammed that shit like crazy. Soon I was on to Cannibal Corpse, who are my all-time favorite band, Morbid Angel, Napalm Death and so on, so forth. Before metal I was into NOFX, Black Flag and Offspring, all of whom I also still listen to.

OG: Did you have a part in any "scene" when you grew up? Promoting shows, being in bands, working for a label, etc?

RG: Where I grew up, there wasn’t and still isn’t much of a scene. I played in bands, mostly with the same people, just in different incarnations, the most notably of being Philadelphia Fratricide and The Eyeboogers. Unfortunately there weren’t many shows available for us, seeing as we were in our mid-teens while playing in these bands. I helped promote friends bands from out of town, like Midget Cum Mustache, Whiskey Tractor and Angry Ralf.

OG: And now to the present, how did your blog "American Aftermath" come to be? Was this your first venture into the "blogosphere"

RG: Haha. I’ve explained this a few times before. I started the blog out of retaliation. I talked to Decibel Magazine’s head honcho Albert Mudrian, asking for a job. When I was turned down, I started e-mailing bands and labels on my own. American Aftermath actually started out as “GnartallicA,” paying homage to my namesake and Metallica. Yes, this was my first blog and so far, so good I’d say.

OG: Are you the overseer over everything that gets posted on AA, or do all your writers have free reign? What do you expect from your writers?

RG: My writers have complete freedom to write about whatever they want. Of course there are guidelines and things that I wouldn’t allow them to write about. For example, I wouldn’t except any racist or homophobic posts. When I say “homophobic” I don’t mean saying “that’s gay.” I don’t see that as homophobic and personally I can’t think of another way to describe Asking Alexandria.
I expect my writers to conduct themselves professionally. I have editors OCD, so I’ve had to lay out exactly how I want things to look in posts. Everyone is very open to it, though. They are all great and I can’t thank them enough.

OG: You've recently started making some drum machine grind with several projects, your most prolific of which is Ritalin Attack. How did these projects come to be?

RG: Well, me and Cory from Kindergarten Hazing Ritual had been throwing the idea of an anime-themed grind band for a while and we finally did it in the form of Human Transmutation. Unfortunately it was short lived, as we only put out the demo and the split with Rat AIDS.
After that, I started doing my own drum tracking and each set of tracks I did seemed to advance, performance-wise and they all sounded different. Therefore, they all had different names: Roughhouse, Waiste, Vulcan Face Fucker, Negative Youth and finally Ritalin Attack. Ritalin Attack was where I stayed because I had a sound I liked. Of course, that changed after a few releases. It wasn’t until my self-split with the Waiste project that I took ahold of the sound that now defines Ritalin Attack.

OG: You already have a ton of releases, most of them are splits, and you've only been doing Ritalin Attack for about a month. How do you do it!?

RG: It’s actually pretty simple: all of the releases up until the Waiste split were done on the fly. I’d program the drums and then blaze through the riffing and I never wrote lyrics. It was all off the top of my head. Since then I have actually started structuring my songs and writing longer tracks. I recently released a 10-track album called “Fast Times For Slow Fucks.” I think it’s my best work to date.

OG: Do you have any more releases planned at the moment?

RG: I recorded all of the “Fast Times…” tracks while I was tracking for my first full-length “Rise of The Drum Machines.” I am still working on that release but I’m not sure when it will be released. Probably this summer. I’m shooting for 20+ tracks.

OG: What's the future looking like for AA. I can only see it going up and up.

RG: More reviews, more interviews and shit! The sky is the limit, man. It really is. I really want to interview Cannibal Corpse again. I got to have a quick exchange with Paul, the drummer, a while back and it was fucking phenomenal.

OG: What releases this year have impressed you the most? What can you say is your current favorite of this year?

RG: The new Antigama EP, Black Hole Of Calcutta LP, Captain 3 Leg/Cop Bar split, Cara Neir/Ramlord split and whatever Pig Destroyer puts out this year. It’s a guaranteed ripper.

OG: Our standard question to end on: if you were stuck on a desert island, what 3 album would you bring?

RG: Definitely Hank Williams Jr.’s “Whiskey Bent And Hell Bound,” St. Vitus’ “Born Too Late” and Crooked Necks “Alright Is Exactly What It Isn’t” or Daughters’ “Hell Songs.” That last one is a hard choice. Gotta have my Hank, though.

~VII

Antigama - "Stop The Chaos" EP Review

The sign of a truly great band is when they can go through severe line-up changes, stay relatively inactive for a few years, and then come back sounding like nothing ever happened. 2012 marks the triumphant return of Polish grind weirdos, Antigama. With four releases planned for this year, two of which are out already, Antigama seem to be back stronger than ever! "Stop The Chaos" is their 2nd release this year, a 6 track EP that should please any long time fans of the band. Admittedly, when I heard of the line-up changes, I was a bit worried that their sound would have drastically changed, even with the return of Lucas on vocals(I'll get to him later). But upon hearing this new EP, all of my doubts and worries were immediately put to rest. "Stop The Chaos" is an excellent Antigama release, sounding like a healthy mix of the "Zeroland" and "Resonance" albums. Sebastian's riffs are devastatingly good, keeping the weird chords and sounds that Antigama are known for, while still keeping everything rooted in familiar grind/metal territory. Creating songs that you can bang your head too, but also keep you interested and with their twists and turns. Little touches of strange really make their songs colorful, like the muted-snare rolls in the song "Intricate Trap" by new drummer Pawel Jaroszewicz(who does a fantastic job and really suits the band well) and the occasional cleans vocals by Lucas. I am so so so happy that Lucas is back in the band. He truly is the voice of Antigama, and hearing his one of a kind vocals again makes me a happy man. My only real gripe about "Stop The Chaos" is the closing instrumental, "The End". It's a spacey, sci-fi, cyberspace traveling piece that's a bit anticlimactic. I would have preferred the EP ended with a bang, but all complaints aside, we still get 5 solid tracks that leave me totally satisfied. Highly recommended.

Rating: 8.5/10

~VII

Sidetracked's Upcoming Release List Is Fucking Incredible

Looks like Suffering Mind have some competition for having "The Most Jizz In Your Pants Worthy Upcoming Releases" list. True, that's a bit of a long titles, but I honestly can't think of a more suitable and fitting way to describe how absolutely incredible this list is. The Tacoma, WA fastcore unit, lead by multi-instrumentalist and vocalist, Jay Tichy, has been keeping busy and putting out quality fast jams for several years now. They even released my 3rd favorite EP of last year with their 1-sided 7", "Uniform". This year has already seen the release of the "Wrench" cassette, and a 7" entitled "Forfeit". But if even 1/2 of these releases come out this year, I think my little fastcore heart would burst with joy! Take a look over at Jay's blog and will show you his "Upcoming List" in better detail, but since you all are probably too lazy to click that link, I'll do you a solid and post it here.


1. Self Inflicted split 7inch (pre-order this now at Deep Six Records)
2. Gaz 66- Intrusion split 7inch
3. Walk it Off single
4. XBrainiaX split 12inch (brb, changing pants now)
5. Gride split 10inch
6. Abandon cdep
7. Dismissal cdep
8. Hired Gun cd
9. Recourse cdep
10. Unnerved 7inch
11. Fever split
12. God's America aka The Seeds Of Rape split tape


Holy fuck, am I stoked. Especially for that xBrainiax split. Talk about fastcore perfection right there. You can also hear preview tracked for some of these releases at the Sidetracked bandcamp. Hail fastcore!

~VII

Hear Some Tracks From Ritalin Attack!

Oh God. You know, the only reason I used that title was because I thought it rhymed, and I'm trying to get creative here with my intros. I'll get better, I swear. But I digress, tonight I present to you all, Ritalin Attack. This is an uber-prolific, raw, one-man drum machine grindcore project spearheaded by a Mr. Ross Gnarly. Who some of you might recognize as the creator of the excellent extreme music blog, American Aftermath. Me and Ross have been talking for a while, and he's always been a friend of OG. So of course when he asked if I could post a few of his songs, I was down. If you like your grind raw and noisy, Ritalin Attack is for you. This dude has a crazy amount of release out, and coming out. These two tracks, "Micky Mouse Whorehouse" and "Fleching Verbal Diarrhea" come off of his latest EP/album(?), "Fast Time For Slow Fucks". Give em a listen.

~VII