I’ve sat on this release for a few months now, biding my time before finally deciding to share it with my dedicated Grinders. I’m taking ownership of you all because I feel responsible for your lives, in the most minute of ways; my suggestions/turns of phrase could save or ruin your day after all! The Arson Project are responsible for taking my life in a new, positive direction in their own unique way, so maybe my ranting and raving about them can do the same for you. This weeks grind entrée is significantly more punk than you might be used to, but don’t let that spook ya. These Swedes get politically charged, pissed off and drop enough hardcore goings on to keep the push pit poppin’.
Like myself, The Arson Project sat on their debut Disgust for some time before its release. For what reason, I don’t know. I don’t really care either. Disgust is just hands down one of the most enjoyable debut releases of the last few years and I’m not exclusively talking grind releases either. Get angry at your local government, get even angrier that we’re all probably gonna be soaked in fallout IF we make it past the blast, it’s time to even get angry at nothing in particular. Considering how much of a big deal everyone made about the last Nails record and it’s “fuck everyone and everything and everyone again” approach, it’s criminal that more people haven’t heard this yet. Because it’s better.
Woah! Did he just say that? Fuck you. It’s my column and yeah, I said it. The meaty, full blown violence that blares for just under twenty five minutes is more palatable yet more cutting than You Will Never Be One Of Us. This isn’t to say tracks like “Raped Minds” necessarily sound like Nails but the jumps between powerviolence, hardcore and grind that The Arson Project are much smoother. There’s feedback in every break and hostility in the air of every breath but the flurries of raking attacks are superior in their rate of infection. Disgust is the dirty kid in school who gave everyone the chicken pox. Scabby, but at the end of the day a necessary evil.
Moving as far away from that ridiculous image as possible, this lethal entry into the world of extreme music doesn’t rely entirely on full tilt assault either. The “long” tracks on Disgust are sordid, grim affairs. The kind of dark jams that trick a room into thinking it’s safe to take a wander through the middle of the pit. “Downward Spiral” isn’t quite the Nine Inch Nails track that it shares a title with but it’s definitely a grotty bit of work. The Arson Project do low and slow almost as effectively as they do grip’n’rip. Fuckin’ check the nick of this next track and come back with less teeth in your face than you did at your last check up.
The drills and buzzsaws are out en force with this lot. The serrated edge of the guitars and bass cut through the feedback and battery of percussion without ever losing definition; more masterful finessing from Audiosiege, fast becoming the number one destination for extreme metal mastering. As far as production goes for a release of this ilk, you’ll really stress finding one that keeps the bite of a filthy grind record yet snaps with every groove and break when the hardcore comes out to play. It’s easy to get lost in the twenty or so minutes on Disgust, which is probably why I love it so much. Like Grind My Gears alumni Teething , the Europeans are making this particular branch of grind their own (US equivalents might be The Drip or Seeker, if that helps). With this full length and a quite frankly insane tour schedule, The Arson Project should already be household names within extreme music. They’re not there yet, but the underground needs to watch it’s back because these Swedes and their vicious chops are disgusting (ho!).