Bandcamp Artists Of The Week: Snuff & Kaiju Daisenso

The bloated music hive that is Bandcamp has been saturated with a muck of  disasterous looking photoshopped album art and one-man bedroom grind projects lately. More bands named after random celebrities then I can count. Most of my perusals have began in vain this past year, but a few shining diamonds in the rough have peeked through. The most recent one being Snuff from Los Angeles. Not sure how many other "Snuff's" there are out there, but I haven't heard one that sounds like this! This is brutal west coast blasturbation giving to you with 100% no bullshit. Their most recent EP, "Slow Life Quick Death" is solid grind excellence. The attention grabbing groove intro is done well, showing off the lo-fi and distorted recording well, and then boom, blasting insanity for the next 10 minutes. If you like Nak'ay, Insect Warfare or Internal Rot, you'll dig Snuff.

I'm a sucker for anything Godzilla, so ya' throw some grindcore into the mix and you're pretty much guaranteed to have a mad decent thing going. Kaiju Daisenso is a NY trio featuring ex-members of many bands according to their bandcamp page, the only one I recognize being Unearthly Trance. Their first s/t EP is bit of a mixed bag of grind. You got some thrash riffs, some melodic leads, some early ANb tempo blasts, and Garageband drums!! I recognize those programmed sounds anywhere. It's some pretty interesting stuff, I don't really hear grind of this style very often. And it's cool as hell to listen to a song called "Monster Zero One". My nerdy side digs that a lot. If you like early Triac, Sick/Tired and maybe even Drugs Of Faith, check this out. A 7" version is also available on their bandcamp page.

~VII

New Water Torture LP - "Pillbox" and Song for Streaming!

The undeniable powerviolence champions of the modern age are coming back again with another tectonic wave of masterful brutality. Now making the big boy steps from their favored 7" format to full length 12"s. Three of them actually! The 12" discography collection which was released earlier this year by Mannequin Rein was only the begging. Two new separate LP's are also set to be released; an as of yet untitled project for To Live A Lie Records (so happy they teamed up). And the soon to be unveiled "Pillbox", brought to us by cult grind label Nerve Altar Records. To say the boys have been busy would be a dastardly understatement. 

As you can see, there is already artwork above. Nerve Altar seems about as giddy and excited to get this record out as we are about listening to it. A steady stream of updates have been coming in, and the big 'ol cherry on top was a new track for streaming called "Fourth Stage". Excellent track, which certainly shouldn't be surprising. The tribal drum patterns opening the song were a refreshing sound for the band, and they're really gone back to that murky, thick, sludgy production akin to their first EP. No Water Torture song would be complete without a sternum crushingly heavy slow part, and they pull out all the cool pauses and breaks on the one here. And are those some Trogotronic blips and bloops I hear at the end? I'd bet money it is. Excellent stuff, I can not wait to hear this entire LP. Stream the track below, and check out more stuff from Nerve Altar and Mannequin Rein as well. 

NERVE ALTAR

MANNEQUIN REIN

~VII

The New Iron Lung 7" Sounds Amazing

Iron Lung are really in no position to prove anything to anybody, their status as one of the top powerviolence bands going right now is pretty set in stone. A duo that has stayed comfortably with their own signature sound, but are not afraid to step outside of it and elaborate on the formula just a bit. Take their last full-length LP, "White Glove Test", for example. A double-magnum opus of synchronized hardcore and industrial noise (on two separate records if you picked up the special addition), was an ambitious effort, but one that was lost on me unfortunately. To me if felt like a ton of the excellent song-writing and even a bit of the aggression was drowned out on that record, it was just an in one ear-out the other listening experience. 

But from the two songs that I've heard from their new EP, "Savagery", Iron Lung seem to have stripped away any hint of playing around for a straight arrow, full on attack mode record. These tracks sound mean, really mean. A reply to the the rampant stupidity of the world manifested in a focused session of making the most savage songs they could, on purpose. The description on the Iron Lung Records bandcamp says everything I need to hear for me to become fully on board with this release. Twelve songs, 6 minutes, some crazy artwork and packaging (to be revealed), and some ruthless jams. Could this become one of my favorite Iron Lung records? I'm leaning towards yes, but boy am I eager to find out for sure. 

"Savagery" is set to be released in August on Iron Lung Records. Stream the two new songs from it down below.

~VII