(DGR jumps back into action once again with a pair of short but sweet EP reviews)
Three months in and although the review slate so far has been oddly stop-start – understandable given the shitshow we’re slowly crawling out of, especially when we can start complaining about being buried by our day jobs again – we’ve had some very choice releases so far.
So I figured after a bunch of long ass reviews I’d try to pick a couple of EPs to keep things shorter for you all, even as I keep on digging through everything else as it’s the only thing keeping me sane.
Right now I present to you some very much up-my-alley style of music though, one Grind release that I’m convinced I have spelled wrong every time it appears (despite the fact that I copy and paste it off of the bandcamp every time) and one so firmly implanted in the Brutal Death concrete that using a jackhammer to get them out would just be added instrumentation for atmosphere.
DISTASTE – WIEDERGANGER
Part of this feels more like an alert than a full blown deep dive but the Distaste crew – whom you might remember as being a longtime fave here and taking my number one slot for year end albums back in 2019 in what may be my crowning achievement in writing – have returned to us once again.
They’re celebrating a lengthy career and in to do so have recorded a six song covers EP entitled Wiedergaenger which is now up on their bandcamp page as a free download.
The group tackle a healthy spread of their early influences and the result is six solid, sometimes played remarkably straight, sometimes really playing up the Grind-side of a band’s sound cover songs.
Distaste tackle some Death Metal royalty here with songs from Obituary and Dismember making the list, as well as picking one of Sepultura‘s faster numbers in “Infected Voice” – which kicks off the whole affair.
There’s also picks from Marduk, Pungent Stench, and one hell of a blast fest in the closing Totenmond cover, laying within the chaotic tracklisting.
Its fun hearing the melodic line of Dismember‘s “Of Fire” brought way in to the forefront as the band immolate the background music and “Infected Voice” translates into Distaste‘s branch of the grind tree near flawlessly.
“Back To One” and “Just Let Me Rot” are great songs in any form so you could chart those as easy layups and Distate manage to take the hellfire of “Of Hell’s Fire” – proud of this line here – and turn it surgically lethal and razor barbed.
Its not a batch of new material from a band who seem to get stronger with each release, but given that it is more a celebratory shoutout to their influences and one that the band are giving out right now, it felt worthy of bringing up so that it could land on a few people’s radar.
INORGANIC – EXISTENCE DENIED
I feel like since bumbling into my first listen of the Hanuman demo early on this year – we posted about it around the same time I came across it – my listening habits have been pretty firmly ensconced in a thick sphere of blast-heavy Death Metal.
With Fractal Generator, Ominious Ruin (more on that coming soon), the thiry-seven thousand letter Eximperitus project, and even Distaste‘s grindier flavorings all on my plate it has felt like I somehow wandered along a mountain pathway only to get crushed by an avalanche of snare drums.
So, it makes sense during my tumble downhill and eventual burial that I’d get pummelled by a few more along the way and thus I present to you Existence Denied, the five song, just over twelve-minute EP by the newly launched Brutal Death Metal project Inorganic.
Hailing from Spain – somewhere we’ve certainly explored from time to time musically, no doubt interest bouyed by the neck-snappers in Wormed – Inorganic play a pretty recognizable form of bulldozer brutality, but the sheer speed at which they hammer these songs out is breathtaking.
The longest song on Existence Denied clocks in at two minutes and forty one seconds, and the rest barely leap over the two minute mark, as Inorganic start at top-speed and basically remain there, while bellowing out a cacophony of cavernous vocals which sound as apocalyptic as the cosmic destruction portrayed on the EP’s cover art.
At times Existence Denied is more one explosive mood than it is specific, separate songs broken out piece by piece. You throw it on knowing full well that it is designed to mow down everything in front of it and when “Lies” starts up, you just hold on because you know there’s now no way off this ride.
It’ll be interesting to see what void and depths the Inorganic crew decide to plumb for future material but as a starting point, Existence Denied makes a pretty fucking blunt first statement.