By: Mark Ambrose
Album Type: EP
Date Released: 01/07/2018
Label: Night Animal Records
“Organ
Dealer/ Nerve Grind/ Invertebrate Split EP” DD//7” track listing
1. Organ Dealer,”Feed”
2. Organ Dealer, “Burn”
3. Organ Dealer, “Remnants”
4. Organ Dealer, “Totality”
5. Organ Dealer, “Contour”
6. Organ Dealer, “Silence”
7. Never Grind, “Bow to
Nothingness”
8. Never Grind, Existential
Significance
9. Never Grind, Worthless
Failure
10. Invertebrate, “Mindgout”
11. Invertebrate, “Fuckface”
12. Invertebrate, “Good for
Nothing”
13. Invertebrate, “Choke”
14. Invertebrate, “The
Reckoning”
15. Invertebrate, “Chump”
The Review:
It’s a god damned golden age of grind. Even the overlooked gems are getting second
lives in the form of reissues (who the hell would expect beautiful, expansive Spazz discographies in multiple formats NOW?), reunions,
international festivals, and bona fide geniuses putting out fresh releases
constantly. The deluge of content is
overwhelming, but the appreciation for the true forebears quickly wipes out
posers and tryhards. Plus, there’s a
certain punky self-effacing attitude that is undeniable about grind – this shit
is on the fringes, and not in some right wing edgelord way. It’s crass, it’s brutal, it’s sometimes
silly, but for those who love it, there are few ways better than spending
fifteen minutes (or often less) than smashing your way through a grind
split. The best of them have the minute
shifts in style and tone that make the genre far more diverse than its harshest
critics would have you believe. And if
it’s just a mediocre effort – hell who doesn’t have fifteen minutes to spare? Thankfully, the three-way collaboration from Organ Dealer, Nerve Grind, and Invertebrate, heralded as an East Coast/West Coast “meeting
of the grinds”, is definitely the former: an all-star smashup that offers entry
for genre newbies and no holds barred true grind annihilation for the most
seasoned veterans.
Organ Dealer may be my favorite underground grind band of
the moment. Maybe it’s the hometown
pride, maybe it’s the sheer volume of output, but there’s also genuine craft to
what they’re releasing – a sometimes mathy, sometimes hardcore balance that
makes them stand out on every release.
I’m a fan of the dual vocal style as they employ it here, with guitarist
Tom Maher offering guttural backup to Scot Moriarty’s higher register hardcore
bark; it’s not necessarily melodic, but there’s a dynamic force and musicality
to the way Moriarty spits out (on “Burn”),
“You cannot gaze at me! Without me life is naught!”
The balance of Trevor Gramm’s clear, pristine
basswork; the dual guitar riffing of Jeff Knoblauch & Maher; and Eric
Schnee’s mind warping drumming start the EP with the breakneck “Feed” and the brutality never
relents.
“Totality” is
the most distinctly “mathcore” sounding cut, with Schnee ascending into
jazz-metal bodhisattva mode. When they
back off from blast beat pummeling, like on personal fave “Contour”, Organ Dealer slides
into a sneering punk swing that just hits me in the perfect way – I wanted to
start my own circle pit on mass transit but had to settle for upsetting my
seatmate on the bus with excessive headbanging.
“Silence” is a grim standout
for me – it’s not “classic” grind, but it’s nasty and heavy, and the perfect
bookend to the six stellar tracks Organ Dealer lay down.
Nerve Grind go straight for the lizard brain, offering
ignorant as fuck deathy grind that doesn’t even crack the two minute mark. I didn’t have a lyric sheet for this one, but
with titles like “Bow to Nothingness”,
“Existential Significance”, and “Worthless Failure”, I assume
guitarist/vocalist Jeff is bellowing out some truly soul-crushing madness – the
perfect match for the downtuned murky progressions. The drumming by Douglas is that relentless
old school blast beat madness that only requires a simple kit but genuine chops
that would make black metal Frost wannabes cry into their plastic mead
horns. It’s brutal and short and solid
grind.
Invertebrate highlight that weird playful grind attitude I
really love. Using key samples and
excellent timing, they often made me laugh out loud before launching into
misanthropic sludge-inflected grind. Lyrics
like “fucking disgrace / emotions erase / good for nothing / pile of shit”
highlight the mantra (if there is one) of this band’s 7 tracks: fuck you AND
fuck me, too. Another power trio, they have
a solid vocal interplay by all three members, with one offering a somewhat
adenoidal bark that was weirdly satisfying and unique amid the deathy growls
and hardcore shouts. The majority of the
tracks are breakneck classic grind, with satisfying forays into sludgy,
groove-inflected riffing. I’d be really
interested in seeing them break out more in a full-length, even if it’s just 15
minutes long, too.
Overall, this untitled split doesn’t reinvent
or redefine anything about grind, but with so many lauded, heavy bands
eschewing just what endeared them to metal audiences (the “black” in the
“blackgaze” crop, the “metal” in the prog metal glut), Organ Dealer,
Nerve Grind and Invertebrate stick to
brutal basics and seem all the more remarkable because of the lack of gimmicky
bullshit. When they throw in some
unexpected grooves, ease back into a slower tempo, or pepper in some funny
sampling, they serve as essential reminders that heavy bands can be innovative
and exciting without hopping on the latest bandwagon or hitching themselves to
the fads that crest and crash every few years in American metal circles. These guys are lifers – the fact that they’re
excellent musicians is just that much more exciting for anyone who’s been
paying attention to the underground.
Band info: OrganDealer
|| NerveGrind
|| Invertebrate
