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Country: Australia Genre: Death/Gore/Grind and Grindcore Record Label: Grindhead Records Release Date: 2008 Track list: Band Website: Roadside Burial |
Roadside Burial - Such is Life/Exhibit A - Home Dentistry
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| Roadside Burial : ShaneO - Guitars Karkuss - Vokills Frog - Bass Macca - Drums |
Exhibit A: shoddy-vox pedro-drums grat-guitar frog-bass |
First of all, apologies to Grindhead for takin' forever to review this, or even to give it a proper listen. Silly of me, ‘cos this split is very good! I remember Roadside Burial from their split with Corpsickle which came out a wee while back; I remember the stuff on that bein' similar to the works of one Mr. Will ‘Small Knife' Rahmer, but with a few plodular broodal death trappings, a good listen overall, but a bit sluggish in places. So here's more Roadside Burial, this time it's a nice split release with Australian friends Exhibit A.
Roadside Burial are much better on this outin', although it does go on a bit. What we have here are seventeen tracks of roarin' gore; obliterative riffage, enormous colourful vox and the drum machine pummels skulls throughout. Although they're almost all around the minute and a half mark, the compositions themselves seem to rattle by in just a few seconds; this enhances the already explosive tunes ‘cos of the way in which they scythe into your ears immediately, then wrap themselves up just as abruptly, with only the occasional movie sample allowin' you to catch your breath for a mo. I'd say this is probably more grind inclined than the last effort, with a much heavier emphasis upon high speed splatter than chuggly clutter, and it works a treat! Riffs? Well, they're not brain-entanglingly technical, but they're not eye-rollingly simple either; distortion-caked six-string crunch crushes along, usually at excessive lick, sometimes a bit smothered under the snare, but always wrenchin' out the best possible riffs for the job. The vox on here are exemplary; liberally smearin' the work with lots and lots of beefy guttural growls and an extremely generous splash of sickenin' shrieks, each performed with fullness and ferocity. That bright-red gob on the mic spews each o' the lyrics (the content of which I'm unsure about ‘cos haven't given us any in the inlay) very well indeed, deliverin' them with consummate slobberiness and precision, findin' a great balance amongst its inventory of vox sounds. Of course, this isnay an recordin' filled with ground-breakin', genre-redefinin' stuff; bands such as this don't set out to reinvent the gore wheel anyways, so if you're after something you've never heard afore within the death/grind/gore genre then you wont find it on here, but if you're lookin' for a highly potent piece o' blast-filled death/grind then you'll find plenty to occupy your ears here.
If you'd like to know who they sound like perhaps it'd be quicker for you to log onto their MySpace and have a scan through the relevant section down the side rather than read a paragraph that I've lazily constructed around the names of the bands cited therein. But I'll do it anyway, now I've covered my back. I must say some of them are not instantly detectable in amongst their recorded work, like classick Australian hard rock luminaries AC/DC and Rose Tattoo! I imagine these are the bands that first inspired the boys to play an instrument. The others, like Bolt Thrower, Rotten Sound, Haemorrhage and Agoraphobic Nosebleed are of course much more evident, but their stuff also reminds me of fellow Australian musicians Captain Cleanoff (on their self titled EP), perhaps a bit of Fuck…I'm Dead too. I wont liken it to Blood Duster though, ‘cos there isn't quite as much groovery at play here.
This is enjoyable stuff that ought to appeal to most fans of gore smeared death/grind; it's got all the right bits in the right places, doesn't seek to befuddle you with over-complex songs or any of those off-time antics, it just crushes merrily. Also, if you heard their split with Corpsickle and thought the stuff on that was alright but didn't deserve any kind of excessive spinnin' in your player, then find this one, ‘cos I think you should be (un)pleasantly surprised! Nice stuff.
Exhibit A play some very corrosive stuff; much faster, rougher and more vicious than the Roadside Burial stuff, they play head-down, balls-out, full-on grindcore, replete with face-excoriatin' riff-blur, piles of blasts and some very rambunctious vox indeed! I hadn't heard anything about this band prior to receivin' this split, and there seems to be little info about them online external to the Grindhead Records pages, although their moniker does make it a bit tricky to track ‘em down. Not to worry, you don't have to go huntin' through cyberspace to find out whether you'll like Exhibit A or not, ‘cos all you need is me!!
Now, when I think o' Australian grind, some of the first names that pop to mind are those of the aforementioned outfits, Blood Duster, Fuck…I'm Dead and Captain Cleanoff, as well as the Grindhead label itself obviously, but this stuff is has a much hairier arsed, old-skool type of sound than that of the buffed-up, streamlined vehicles used by the above-aforecited bands to convey their artistic expressions. Don't ask me why, but for some reason I thought I might be in for some slavish Carcass carbon-copy action, but Exhibit A play a kind of ‘no-messin' about style' grindcore, with a smelly layer of crust bein' clearly audible; if not so much in the vox and percussion (no comical bellowin' or clumpety D-beat here I'm afraid) then certainly in the arrangements, delivery and overall sound quality, so think crust/grind rather than crust punk. Also, don't led me lead you to believe that these guys have filled their tunes with vociferous political views, ‘cos that's certainly not what Exhibit A are all about, they're into total daftness, not current affairs. Just look at some of those song titles!
Now, time to talk about the kind of sounds that they make with their strings, sticks and mouths. The guitars attack your auditory system with very raucous outbursts of heavily distorted menace, the riffs bein' a simple yet effective means of flayin' the cerumen from your canals, whilst the highly energetic rhythm section ensures that your head and feet will remain in vigorous motion throughout, the bass rumbles heavily thru your guts and the vox complete the terrifyin' attack by infiltratin' your face with enraged howlin' and furrowed brow growlin' most of the time, but in some of the shorter songs they do this silly falsetto squealin', which ought to bring a smile to your mug. A lot of these vox will still be whirlin' round and round in your head for a long time after your listen. Many of the tunes blast in and blast back out again without a moment's notice, whilst those that do try balance to things out a bit usually begin with some kind of pie ‘n' mash crustification, afore a rapid splash of kit leads things back into grindin' mayhem.
Whilst havin' a look through their thanks list, I noticed ‘Emburyisms' and ‘the Pintado Feel' in amongst the shouts, so that alone should be enough to assure you that you're in for plenty of old Napalm Death stylings when you get Exhibit A poured into your ears. Along with that, I think you ought to expect some more early Earache stuff, such as classick Old Lady Drivers, especially in some of the acidic mid-pitched vox, and also a bit of Spazztic Blurr and Unseen Terror somewhere in there, as well some Anal Cunt shrillness. In terms of more recent stuff, I could also liken the overall ferocity, yammerin' vox and ‘ear-bleeding' style to grind as violent as Yacopsae, with some parts remindin' me of The Afternoon Gentlemen and Warboys split, perhaps old Joe Pesci, but slower and less unpredictable than those chappies. The snippets of silly, screechin' vox remind me of classick Gut, but that's where the similarities end; no sleezy grooves here, just crushin' bashage!
The artwork for both sides o' this is handled by the same artist, Glenno, whose work you might remember seein' adorn the fronts of a fair few albums recently, like ones by Captain Cleanoff and Blood Duster, and also some stuff for Obscene Extreme. The visual accompaniment to Roadside Burial is a pickaxe-wieldin' loon, about to swing his tool right into your noggin, whilst Exhibit A have got rather a winceworthy piece which, in correspondence with the title of their side, shows us a blood-sprayin' gob gettin' its teeth removed by a number of brutal methods. Bleuch!!
If you like goreified, murderous death/goregrind and also enjoy chaotic grindcore with a sense of humour, then there's more than enough for you on here. Cheers!
April 25, 2009
    
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