Old painless are a four piece grindcore band from Raleigh. Three of the members are in other local bands, Rich Lombardi(vox) is in Snake Baptist, and he was also in a band from New York called the Sawtooth Grin. Alex Taylor is the bassist for local Raleigh hardcore band Stripmines(AWESOME). And the drummer Rodney was the former singer of Raleigh fastcore band Thieves (R.I.P.).
Old Painless are one of Raleigh most furious and fierce bands. They just sound like absolute psycho animalistic rage to me, and I fucking love it. The first time I saw this band was at the Kent house. It was such an awesome show! They were playing with Burma(pissed off Raleigh powerviolence), Hellbear(progged out thrashy, mathy, hardcore from Richmond, VA), and Street Pizza(Relentless Richmond powerviolence trio). Old Painless was the first band to play. I remember as they were setting up, there guitarist was messing around with these weird effects pedals, and making his guitar sound super noisy and chaotic. Then all of a sudden this short white guy with crazy blonde hair and a scruffy beard walks up to the front and says “Old Painless, Raleigh, North Carolina.” and then starts screaming super loud, and the whole room erupted into a frenzy of moshing. It all seems a little blurry to me because I couldn't help but completely rage with the rest of the dudes in there. And man can Rodney fuck those drums up! He was beating them in! And you could tell he was seriously into it! Awesome band, and it was an awesome night. But anyways, on to the demo:
Black Tar Burning White- This song starts off with a little feedback, and then Rich comes in with his vicious high pitched screech, and right away the demo starts off completely grinding. But this is only the beginning, and it ends and flows right into the next song so well.
Street Howitzer- I absolutely love the way this song starts off, the guitar intro with the drums absolutely rocks, it’s adds a little bit of catchiness to it. The guitars and the drums in the beginning make it sound like a hardcore punk song, but Rich’s vocals definitely give it that extra nasty grind kick. The drums in this song are done so well. Rodney is so good at changing it up. He doesn’t have to rely strictly on blast beats. He can go from your to hardcore circle pit kind of beat, right into a desecrating blast. And the drum fills he does are so sick, It’s almost as if he’s angry at his drumset and is trying to beat the shit out of it. The song ends in a noisy fog of sludge, awesome!
Snow White and 7 Different Kinds of Whore- This continues on the path of super fast punk influenced noisy grind. Old Painless really do a good job at making there songs sound absolutely evil. Rodney continues to pound away at his drums.
Goner- This song has got to be one of my favorites. Starts off very quiet, with this eery sounding radio playing in the background, and it’s this woman singing. And then a faint guitar sound comes in. It builds up for a bit, and then the drums come pounding in. The first line of the song goes as followed, “If my name is hate, your’s must be shame.” This song is definitely heavy, and the demo just keeps getting better and heavier. I think it’s really awesome that Old Painless are to step out of their grind sound for a second and kick ass at a sludge song as well. This band never fails to remain ridiculously heavy!
Teenage Candyland- This song continues in the sludge direction. Starts off really groovy, and then goes straight into grind. The end is filled with start/stop guitars and lots of noisy feedback.
Half Man, Half Bottle- This song is one of my favorites because of the lyrics, they’re so evil and fucked up. For example: “The broken blood vessel in your face vessels in your face are telling me that you’re thirsty. So put your teeth to the curb, and I’ll pour you that drink.” This song is probably the heaviest song on the album. It has a great mix of everything. This song is one of the more technical songs on the album as well, the band is really pushing themselves to go faster and faster. But of course they throw in a super heavy grooving sludge part to give you a small break from the hyper blasts and super spazzy guitars. The songs end with some feedback and guitar and Rich Lombardi’s disgusting screech. The final lyrics are “Half Man, Half Bottle, All Empty.” Absolutely fucking EVIL!!!!
Bronson- This final songs starts off grinding, and creeps into a dark thick sludge. You can tell that Rodney’s goal is to absolute finish off his drum set on this last one. And then the demo ends right when you feel like it’s just begun in an eery daze.
Old Painless are definitely one of Raleigh’s up and coming bands. You can download their demo at the link below. And I highly recommend seeing this band live as soon as you can, this demo is great, but when you hear it live, it’s so much more intense, and watching each band member go absolutely crazy makes it even better. They’re playing in Raleigh, August 12th, venue TBA with Fellow Raleigh powerviolence band Burma, My new grind obsession Priapus, seriously I aspire to be able to make music like them, and west coast powerviolence/grind band ANTI CHRISTIANxDEMON CORE!
~Eli Thorp
