Decayed Race - 'Demo 2011' (Grandmas Lakehouse?) 4/5

A time for another random surf find, Decayed Race, are from Texas in the USA and have only been around since the start of last year

Now this sort of stuff takes me back. In the late 1980's I was in a rather obscure thrash metal band and due to the fact we knew Bath crustcore kings Amebix we ended up on a number bills with acts from the then exploding UK hardcore / grindcore / crust core scene. This was the age of the infamous micro-song. One act we played with did over 50 tracks in a half hour set. It was a bit of a shock at first, after all my musical schooling came from the days of prog rock and old school metal, but I soon got used to the minimalist approach and broadened my musical taste to allow albums by the likes of Napalm Death and Doom into the collection.

So when I downloaded this little nine tracker and found myself with tasty slice of 80's sounding crust fueled hardcore on my hand I was little bit delighted. Of the nine tracks on offer here, seven can be called true micro songs with play times from 14 seconds to just over half a minute (of the two remaining tracks Chipped Teeth only just passes the one minute mark). Numbers like Swine Brutality, Oppressed and Bleached fly past in glorious short blurs of angry attitude, walls of sonic devastation and brutal bludgeon that hit and run like Greek rioters outside a government office. Think Sore Throat, Electro Hippies, Napalm Death and Ripchord and you'll know exactly where these guys are coming from. Then by contrast we have the closing instrumental Chained Up, by contrast an epic at over three minutes long that is classic doomcore, all grinding menace, dark riffs and wailing feedback.

OK the production here is not hot, but when it comes to this stuff it doesn't need to be, as I keep saying, punk in all its sub genres is about attack and attitude, with everything else being secondary; and boy do these guys have both in abundance. True crusty grindcore is not often heard these days so when you do find some as good as this, then it must be embraced and praised for keeping one rocks most interesting sub genres alive.

Recommended.

For fans of... Napalm Death, Doom, Police Bastard, Black Flag, Sore Throat, Ripchord etc...

This demo can be downloaded for free from here. http://www.mediafire.com/?559pmc0ckwuamcb

Betty Swallaux - 'Demo 2011' (self released) 4.5/5

Llanelli outfit Betty Swallaux were formed earlier this year and are currently a studio project whilst they are seeking 'the right drummer'. This is their first release and is in effect a collection of various demo recording the band have assembled over the past few months.

Now this one is very interesting indeed. It's not often that I get to hear such a diverse blend of influences and inspirations. There are bits that sound like Venom type primordial death metal, other bits remind me a little of Ramstein style teutonic industrial rage rock. Then there are bits of Sore Throat style grindcore, snifters of RATM style groove metal, touches of Rolo Tomassi style prog-core; even hints of Gay For Johnny Depp style post hardcore... and its all rolled into one overall sound that is the closest to 'unique' I've come across for a long time.

OK the production is a tad rough as is to be expected, but nowhere does that detract from the pure quality of the music on offer. Gaz Wooloffs vocals are remarkable, he manages to sound like Ramsteins Till Lindenmann, Sore Throats Rich Walker and FFAF's Matthew Davies-Kreye all at once, switching styles often bar to bar. The guitars of the aforementioned Mr Wooloff and Peter Smith and the bass of Dai Price are so bleedin' heavy they create their own gravity field. And a special mention must be made about the drums on this demo. Lacking a stickman, the band created them beat by beat, track by track from the bass drum upwards, a long and laborious process, but one that works so well here. The result is something that falls halfway between the warmth of a real drummer and the clinical precision of a drum machine, and sounds perfect for Betty Swallaux's black-groove-industrial-progressive-hard-metal-grindcore stylings.

I really do love this stuff. Tracks like the dark and sinister Change, the industrial groove of Extremist and the progressive grindcore of Give In, just roll out of the speakers like a glorious sonic assassination that can kill from several hundred yards and put a smile on your face while they are doing it. I'm hard pushed here to select a favourate track, it changes with each play, but at the moment it's In My Veins, a cut that starts off all trippy and mellow, then goes all Venomesque blast and bludgeon before ending with a section that sounds like Tangerine Dream goes happy house (I kid you not!!)

This is cutting edge stuff, I've not heard its like before, I doubt if many people have, and I'm sure if the band started to hawk this demo around some of the more left-field and open minded progressive record labels, internet radio stations and magazines, things could start to happen for them. After all this could well be the future of music.

For fan of... Ramstein, Rolo Tomassi, Saints Of Eden, Sore Throat....