3-way Hygiene Records Review: Gets Worse, Cheap Art, Chulo/Marion Barry

As you may have picked up from the Abuse. review I posted a couple weeks ago, I am in a full on Hygiene Records kick. The NC based label has put out not only some of the most solid grindcore and powerviolence records of the year, but a couple records I consider some of the years best! Here are my thoughts on a three of the labels freshest releases.

Gets Worse shouldn't be a very new name to a lot of you. After all the band burst into the undergrounds consciousness with a punishing debut 10" last year, and a crushing follow up EP a few months later.
Now these UK chuggers take another swing with their new 7", "Negative". A record that's as heavy as it is nice to look at (seriously, these records look f-a-b-ulous). The band may have less run time to work with, but they pack as much burly, raw beef riffs into it as they can. They always struck me as a really good mixture of Weekend Nachos (almost eerily similar) and The Afternoon Gentlemen. They definitely bring the blasts, but for the most part the songs are built around crushing slow chugs that turn your skull into a fine powder. Not really a style I listen to very often, but these guys are definitely masters of the heavy powerviolence art. Do not skip.

Rating: 7.5/10

I remember posting about Cheap Art a while ago as a Bandcamp Artist Of The Week, so I'm very happy to see that they got the record label treatment for their next EP. "Desocialized" is 10 minutes of pure fuck off fastcore, and the band sounds as fierce and and as loud as ever! Now backed by a new
singer (male/female tradeoff), the vocals are fantastically overblown and distorted, but that's about the only gruff thing about this recording. The band sounds much more full and bassier this time around, everything is just bigger and better, and fast as fuck. This band goes off the walls ballistic with their blast parts, like a freight train carrying nitroglycerin going mach 3. But that's not to say that this record isn't also full of tasty riffs and brutal slow passages. Class stuff, definitely one of the best fastcore records I've heard this year, and one that I play often.

Rating: 8.5/10


I'm real happy to see that this record finally came out. We here in the OG headquarters have been fans and supporters of Chulo for a long time, and they have been nothing but kind and supportive right back (their ex-vocalist Oscar even did the art for OG Vol. 2)! Plans for this split kick started over a year ago,
and finally, we have this excellent slab of wax available! Chulo are up first, pulling a Six Brew Bantha and starting off with a pulled back, rawwwww recording, before kicking into the actual well recorded part. The band has always sounded good, and this split is no exception. Solid, ripping grindviolence in the veins of Insect Warfare and Assück, with a little 90's Agathocles and maybe some Canadian fastcore a'la Obacha thrown in the mix for good measure. Lots of really good riffs, solid song writing, a great snare tone that's louder then anything else in the mix (I dig it). While I definitely say Chulo are the winners of this split, Marion Barry's side is a worthy companion. Never really dug this band to heavily, but for what they do, it's good. Noisy powerviolence stuff with lots of screeching power electronic samples and tons of movie clips that are actually pretty amusing ("I'm bout to go from ashy, to classy). They definitely lean on the goofier side of things, mostly in their lyrics, which is totally fine and dandy, but I've yet to be blown away by anything they do. Good split!!

Rating: 7/10

You can pick up all these records, and more, from Hygiene Records. Full support!!!

  

~VII