(Any band who names their debut EP after a 1967 Hugo-Award-winning short story by Harlan Ellison is alright in my book. But apart from having good literary taste, their music stacks up pretty damned well, too. Here’s TheMadIsraeli’s review . . . and we also have a special treat: With the band’s permission, a free download of the music.)
We’re gonna take a bit of a break from year-end round-ups to go over a late 2012 EP I stumbled upon that I think is worth checking out. GROT are, at their core, an Irish deathgrind outfit with a good bit of old fashioned Dying Fetus groove thrown in, but the membership actually reveals a more international collective: GROT is composed of the mighty Kevin Talley on drums, John Roche of Gama Bomb on guitars and bass, and Eoin Broughal from Cold War and Warpath on vocals.
I Have No Mouth and I Must Scream is a no-bullshit collection of very mid-90’s deathy grime and venom. The EP, at least as we have it, consists of five original songs and two covers (Napalm Death’s “Unchallenged Hate” and Misery Index’s “Pulling out the Nails”, though the Misery Index cover doesn’t come on the physical copies) that provide an immensely satisfying morsel of brutality and energy. This band also has a shitton of meat, in the sense that their riffs, their grooves, their sections of chaotically fast double-bass saturation and grinds all have a massiveness to them that feels like a tonnage of toxic waste spill being shoved down your throat.
The EP stream is below; I’ll be surprised if this doesn’t immensely please the general audience of this site with brutality boners. Thankfully, GROT are a bunch of badass dudes and have allowed us to host this for download. If you want the physical, you can go get it at their Bandcamp page via the link below. The download includes not only that Misery Index cover, which doesn’t come on the physicals, but also the eye-catching album art.
Awesome music. Reminds me a lot of Misery Index. And since Harlan Ellison happens to be a personal favorite of mine, I appreciate a band paying homage to his creative works.
Heaaaaaavy!!!! That lineup is sweet!!! Good to see Kev keeping his beak wet with some blasting grind!
Kevin Talley on drums is all you needed to say and I would give it thumbs up.