TWO BLASTS FROM CALIFORNIA: WORSE AND CALCIFIED BIRD CARCASS

 

(Here we have DGR’s review of two grind blasts.)

WORSE

Worse hail from lovely San Francisco, California and are a band who have been kicking around in my inbox for some time — a result of my random discovery of the group Dakhma. The two bands seem to be friends with one another so it isn’t too shocking to see arrows pointing in their direction. One of the reasons it took a little bit for me to write about them was that their EP slotted in so well with my listenings that it was like I had always listened to it and it was always there, leading to a lot of, “I wrote about that, right?” scenarios. Plus, I wanted to get these guys in alongside some more music to really set the post off like fireworks.

Worse, to put it politely, sound like a musical temper tantrum led off by a drum count on each song, and their self-titled release is a quick blast of violence. If you have ever been to a city that is really packed together, you’ll often come across houses that are listed as three bedrooms, 2 bathrooms, and they are three stories tall. It’s because each floor is essentially a bedroom. Listening to Worse, it sounds like the band are set up in one of those houses and recorded their first release by setting the drum kit and guitars on the top floor, counting off to begin the song, and then proceeding to kick those fucking things down the flight of stairs and have somebody scream over the sound.

You know what though? Running the EP concurrently with the recent Dakhma release and the group discussed below gets you one hell of a musical freakout. The members of Worse clearly take this very seriously — this is some pretty raw stuff and a great debut to expose to them to the world, especially when more and more people take notice of it. A few of the songs on this self-titled EP get over the couple-of-minutes mark, but if you’re looking for the shorter hits, Worse pack a couple of those in, too. As a full run, they make the whole thing just seem like a metric ton of explosions packed into a handful of minutes, to the point where you can see the energy bursting from the seams.

http://worsesf.bandcamp.com/releases
https://www.facebook.com/worsesf

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

CALCIFIED BIRD CARCASS

Further down the road in our lovely state of California, we find ourselves sitting on musician A.C Riddle’s doorstep. We’ve covered his projects before, mostly the melo-death project The Ragnarok Prophecy (itself having a new song entitled “The Lost Race”, which you can check out here), but this go-around we figured we should aim for something a little different. It just so happens that his timing was fortuitous, as this article was being tossed around in storms and whirlwinds while I tried to find an overall theme for it, adding and removing bands. He linked us to a really short demo of music that he just smashes out and leaves lying in the dust, known as Calcified Bird Carcass.

While these types of demos seem to be popping up more frequently as they become something of the thing to do at the moment when you have a bunch of really heavy ideas that you don’t know what to do with, Calcified Bird Carcass lines up rather well with Worse’s six-minute musical tantrum above, plus it allows us to make a post in which the combined total of music is only about nine minutes. None of the songs on Calcified Bird Carcass’ demo clears a minute, and the first blast is pretty indicative of what will be happening in the next two. All of them are basically quick bursts of musical exorcism that were then slapped onto the internet for a “name your own price” fee. While not quite as focused on the overall punk aspect as Worse are, Calcified Bird Carcass still manages the go-fast be-angry and scream-a-whole-lot that this one branch of the genre has become rather well.

https://calcifiedbirdcarcass.bandcamp.com/