After a stroke resulted in the partial paralysis of his left hand, there was a moment that guitarist Takafumi Matsubara thought his grindcore career was over. But little by little, a painfully slow rehabilitation process allowed him to recover the fretboard speed and agility that he had previous to his condition. It produced good tidings for us grindcore freaks, as well — from death metal-inspired grindcore act Mortalized to technical grindcore heroes Gridlink, Matsubara’s unique style has pervaded all of his projects, and he’s just about the only guitarist who could be rightly called a grindcore guitar hero.
All things considered, it’s not insignificant news that Matsubara is slated to debut two new projects this year. One is Barren Path, a band made up almost exclusively of ex-Gridlink members. The other is the progressive grindcore band Birth and Loss. The latter is debuting with a succinct, 10-minute EP showcasing Matsubara’s singular style that fans of Gridlink should be very familiar with by this point. However, Untitled is not simply a continuation of Gridlink’s signature sound. Several tracks illustrate Matsubara’s predilection for experimentation within the strict confines of grindcore. Those experiments aren’t always successful, but they demonstrate a lot of promise for what is still possible for the 40-year-old subgenre in Matsubara’s forward-thinking mind.
The melodic, tremolo-picked guitar lines under relentless blastbeats that Matsubara mastered by the time Gridlink’s Coronet Juniper (2023) was released are in full force on Untitled. Tracks such as opener “Birth and Loss,” “暴力の温もり” ("The Warmth of Violence") and “人間性に回帰する消耗品” ("Consumables that Bring Back Humanity") are perfect encapsulations of this style. They feature multiple, layered guitar tracks that serve different purposes. The rhythm guitar tracks create the aggression and punch while the leads serve as a melodic, nearly mournful counterweight. However, there are a few surprises sprinkled throughout the final tracks of this concise release. “勝つしかない人と負けるしかない人” ("Those Who Have No Choice but to Win and Those Who Have No Choice but to Lose") contains noticeably slower tempos and exclusively spoken word vocals, yet it still retains the intensity of the rest of the EP.
“孤独が嫌で孤独になった” ("I Hated Being Lonely, So I Became Lonely"), on the other hand, pushes boundaries more than any other track on the album. It begins and ends with an approximation of oddball jazz fusion experimentation, à la Atheist. After some minimalist interplay between drummer Kenta Nakanishi and bassist Rahat Mostafa, a skipping drum pattern emerges to which the bass responds, and this eventually builds to a full-fledged grindcore composition at the halfway mark of the track. The grindcore ends abruptly before the same skipping drum pattern reenters along with some off-kilter harmonized guitar lines from Matsubara. While experimentation is always welcome, that doesn’t necessarily mean it always works. The spoken word stylings offer a deviation from most grindcore vocal styles, but it comes off as an odd juxtaposition. Spoken word easily falls into place with quiet, spacious, and open-ended music, but it seems a peculiar pairing with music that is loud, dense, and highly structured. Similarly, the jazz fusion-esque intro and outro are well-executed on their own, but they seem oddly paired with the rest of the song and the rest of the EP in general.
There is a lot of promise displayed on Untitled even if all of the experimentation doesn’t quite hit the mark. If Birth and Loss continues in this direction and better integrates the experimentation into the grindcore format, there is a possibility for some seriously outré and pioneering sounds that pair better with the long-established tropes of the grind subgenre. Regardless, those grind freaks among us who are still feeling teased after Gridlink’s brief reunion will find much to appreciate here on one of the best grindcore releases of the year so far.