Total Fucking Destruction – #USA4TFD

Matt MacLennan
Grind My Gears, Reviews
What does one do when the genre-defining band they've played in for years, disbands? Most will pack up their instruments and kit, settling into another grind altogether - regular, boring ass working life. Not Richard Hoak. During the final days of Brutal Truth's existence, Hoak obviously decided he hadn't had enough. The melting pot of blasts and wicked arrangements in his mind finding a new home in Total Fucking Destruction. Nearly twenty years after the first release under this name, we find ourselves in a time where grindcore is more important than ever. It's always been political, but the platform is sometimes a bit wobbly. Not in this case. #USA4TFD is a viral musical statement that no one is sharing. Yet.

Grind My Gears – Piss Vortex

Matt MacLennan
Grind My Gears
Grind My Gears is back once again with the swirling streams of caustic yellow filth. I promise that I will never again let sickness keep me and the grind away from your weak, prolapsed cavities. Now, this isn't the first time I've written about Piss Vortex for Heavy Blog (it's not even the second) but these Copenhagen deviants are quite simply the best of the best; in terms of where they are taking the sound and the sickening swagger with which they do so. They're not Napalm Death or Brutal Truth yet, obviously—they have less than hour of recorded music available to grind to—but with their recent surprise EP Soft Reboot they've delivered a quick wake up kick in the dick to anyone as yet unaware.

Lock Up – Demonization

Bill Fetty
Reviews
Whenever your band starts with the longtime bassist of Napalm Death (Shane Embury) and the vocalist from Brutal Truth (Kevin Sharp) it’s a fairly safe bet that you’re in for some serious grindcore. Add a drummer who has worked with Cradle of Filth and Dimmu Borgir (Nick Barker), stir with a heaping helping of guitar from Chile’s Pentagram and Criminal (Anton Reisenegger) and you have the latest incarnation of grind supergroup, Lock Up. This crew brings us their latest onslaught, Demonization.

WAKE – Sowing The Seeds of a Worthless Tomorrow

Colin Kauffman
Reviews
Calgary, Alberta’s WAKE are torchbearers of a specific dissonant, dark and experimental brand of grindcore that reminds of acts as diverse as Napalm Death, Brutal Truth, Discordance Axis and perhaps most of all, the late, great Nasum. It’s in the Nasum influence where this record, their third, truly shines. Channeling all the darkly melodic guitar lines and song structures they can, WAKE have crafted an album that not only does justice to the legacy of a fondly remember, gone too soon extreme metal band, but carve a niche all their own in the grindcore genre.