There is a lot of heavy, unwholesome records dropping in the month of March. Enforced has a new record out today, as do EYEHATEGOD, Regional Justice Center, and God’s Hate. But before you totally ruin your hearing with any of those releases, might I recommend a way to irrevocably violate your sense of decency as well? You may think I’m asking permission, but I’m not. This is more of a warning than anything. A roadside with the words “STOP” scrawled across it in animal blood, raised in a vain attempt to preserve some kind of sanity in the world. The fact that you’ve already clicked on this article though is a fair indicator that you’ve already given up on the world as a place you can make any kind of sense of, so let’s get on with it, shall we?
Our Bandcamp of the Day is the latest split from Grog and Namek, titled Monsters. The two Portuguese grindcore bands share an ugly attitude and a sick appetite for destruction. We talked with Grog and Helldprod Records owner Pedra about his band’s split with Agathocles late last year, and Monsters has been on our radar ever since. It’s absolutely bloody disgusting in the best kind of way. Grog’s guitar works sound like its bubbling up from the slurry pond of a hog slaughtering plant and Pedra’s vocals are suitably unhinged, sounding like he’s recently emerged from a well where he was left for dead four months prior after being mugged and has now gone completely feral and insane. The grooves on “Suck 4 A Buck” succeed in making you feel like you’re being sucked through a metal straw into the jaws of a wolf, while “Marginal” takes a grindy crust punk rhythm and gives it a deadly swing, giving it the impact of a barbarian bringing down the blade of his ax to rest in the dead center of your skull.
Namek’s side of the split is even more deranged if you can believe it. It sounds like it was recorded in a studio made entirely out of discarded arm ration tins and the punishing, thwack of their grooves will land in your ears like stones toppling off a cliff onto an unwary goat below. By which I mean, that the guitar work has a disgusting slap to it, a sound that you’d expect from a meat hammer hitting a side of beef, but not from a musical instrument. Namek’s tendency to slip into unreasonably wet-sounding gore and slam-shriek vocals really heightens the queasy feeling that the tracks on their side of the illicit. An abattoir of sound with no sense of modesty or restraint.
You want monsters? Here you go. Now run for your lives!
Stream the entirety of Grog and Namek’s Monsters split via Bandcamp below:
If you are looking for this on vinyl, Hellprod Record’s stock is currently sold out. But you can still get it from Vomit Your Shit Records and Grindhead Records.
