Monday, October 31, 2011

weapon abuse

I'm going to list a handful of similarities that todays post fodder possesses with yesterday's blogging. Here's the new split 7" between Ireland's Drainland and Florida's Cellgraft. Black wax. The following list may seem totally irrelevant in your mind, but to me it works. a)- It's been pressed again by Superfi Records out of the UK (in conjunction with IFB Records and De Graanrepubliek Records). b)- It came in the same package as the TEB/PHT split. c)- Both records use the imagery of a piggy as part of their layouts/themes. d)- Both are certainly going to battle it out for my personal favourite for artwork in a record in 2011. e)- In the last six months or so have I begun to speak regularly to members of one band on each record. f)- Said members are also very good mates from way back, totally unbeknown to me until recently. g)- Both records are comprised of bands that hail from differing countries. It all makes sense in my head at least.
I've already posted about Drainland on here in the last year. Downtuned, aggro hardcore from Dublin. Their two tracks here aren't totally dissimilar to a lot of their previous music, most obvious though is the improvement of one of the singers, Jamie's vocals. He sounds a lot more in control of his pipes these days and comfortable with his approach. Due virtually to this very fact alone, the two songs here come across as more entertaining to listen to than the stuff from their debut MLP and split with Grinding Halt. To me anyway. I'd try to make comparisons to other great bands but I'd more than likely get it wrong. Just think of a reasonably modern sounding, dark, down-tuned hardcore band.
I've never taken a massive interest in Cellgraft. I did post very briefly about their demo mid last year, but for whatever reason they've just never grabbed my interest like a lot of other modern grind bands have in the last five years. Aware of this fact, I kind of feel a little stupid, because their half of this split is pretty great. They'd quickly be compared to greats like Excruciating Terror, and even early Napalm Death I think, and as with most of todays good grindcore bands, i'd immediately parallel them to Insect Warfare. Maybe it's goofy, but that band almost seems like the benchmark for modern grindcore these days. Heavy, metallic production, dominant shorter song structures, loud, grunted vocals offset with lots of high end stuff, relentless blast beats, and the odd peppering of some cool groove based breaks. And with that blueprint, the band has run wild here. This would easily represent their cleanest and heaviest recording to date, and I don't doubt that fans of any of the bands I just mentioned would turn their nose up at these seven songs. Expect more posts about this band in the approaching weeks.
So as I mentioned, here's a contender for artwork of 2011 and I doubt I need to explain why to most readers. For once we've escaped a stock standard drawing or photo of a dead guy or a skull. I'm certainly no horror or gore freak, but I do find myself fascinated by this photo for whatever reason.

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