SHORT BUT SWEET: MINDFUL OF PRIPYAT

This is the third of three EP reviews I’m posting today. The first band was Australia’s Ur Draugr, the second was New Zealand’s The Skull, and now we leap across seas and continents to visit a band from Italy named…

MINDFUL OF PRIPYAT

Mindful of Pripyat are a new death/grind collective from Milan who released their debut assault — …And Deeper, I Drown In Doom — via Bandcamp last week. I was drawn to explore the music because the band includes Giulia (aka Doomed Warrior) from the fantastic Into Darkness on guitars, bass, and vox. Her bandmates are Tya (lead vocals and noise) and Gio (drums and vocals) — and yes, all three members vocalize.

Taking their inspiration from old-school grindcore in the vein of Napalm Death, Terrorizer, and Dead Infection and with a conceptual focus on dystopian futures and post-apocalyptic scenarios, Mindful of Pripyat have delivered 16 tracks in less than 20 minutes. They make very good use of the time.

The music is mainly fast-paced, part brutal barroom rampage, part-chugfest, part punk-influenced beatdown. The guitars have a rancid, radioactive, spine-rattling chainsaw tone and they inflict head-smashing riffs that hammer and rake viciously. But the grooves carved by those riffs are deep and bloody; this savage music is made for moshing, even if you’re by yourself. Just make sure your pets are in another room and the fine china has been put away.

The band’s rhythm section is firing on all cylinders, too. The deep thrumming of the bass resonates all the way down to the soles of your feet, and the hyper-speed drum performance just adds that extra dose of electricity that brings the EP close to… an overdose… of potent energy. And there’s just enough rhythmic and tempo variety to keep you on your toes all the way through.

And those three voices! I’m not positive who’s doing what, but the trade-offs between deep guttural gurgles, hair-on-fire shrieking, and feral growls and howls works really well. It’s like being caught in a cage with a menagerie of starving predators who can’t wait to suck the marrow from your crunchy bones.

Well, I guess you can tell I’m really high on this blast of well-produced mayhem. It’s eviscerating, galvanizing, expertly performed, and really well-produced to achieve maximum destructive fury. It’s one of the best death/grind releases I’ve heard in ages. Listen below.

https://mindfulofpripyat.bandcamp.com/releases
https://www.facebook.com/mindfulofpripyat