(DGR wrote this review of the new album by Swedish group Quest of Aidance. It’s scheduled for release on June 3 by Pulverised Records.)

Quest Of Aidance’s Misanthropic Propaganda is one of the few albums out there that can effectively be described as a blur. It’s a sometimes incomprehensible, speed-focused chunk of deathgrind that at fourteen tracks still feels incredibly short – if not just because pretty much every song on it moves at breakneck speed and rarely slows down for anything.

Most of us are probably familiar with the 40-second smash-and-grab of a song known as “Anyx” that was the band’s recent premiere (outside of a couple of demos), but it hardly represents the rest of this disc. In fact, it feels almost like no one song really represents Misanthropic Propaganda. It feels like fourteen different, really fast experiments in death metal with the occasional leaning toward grind. It’s an album that at times can feel a little too familiar to those who know the roster of musicians that make up the band, but is still interesting and varied enough to be appealing.

Misanthropic Propaganda is a rare breed because it is one of those albums that doesn’t make an immediate first impression. Most albums you can get a spin or two in and you’ll find yourself in love-it-or-hate-it mode by that point, but I found myself acknowledging that the music was enjoyable but not settling on a lasting opinion. However, I have been drawn back to the disc because something about it hinted at far greater things, as if buried beneath those layers of blasts and walls of guitars there would always be something new to discover. It has – for lack of a better term – pulled me into its grip. Continue reading »