Before I can tell you the story of Woundflower and their debut full-length, Misery, we will have to first talk about the band Bled To Submission. Blog alumns and friends to The House of Grindcore, Nashville's Bled To Submission released their third and final major release, Bury Them in the Graves They Dug For You, on Nerve Altar Records back in 2021. After a musical career spanning some five years, the band ultimately chose to bury themselves in the grave that they dug by calling it quits soon after the release of that last EP. The band's sludgey mix of power viol ..read more

  "Arrrggh! My groin!" -George C. Scott, in 'Man Getting Hit by Football' The Simpsons, 1995     After an extraordinarily taxing and toilsome summer, time has been tight and money even tighter. My small family's eagerly anticipated meager beach vacation was truncated by the first tropical storm of the year. The money pit that is my car has grown vast and cavernous. Then there are the trials and tribulations of finally trying to produce and monetize my art by selling them at local markets and bazaars, only to barely cover the overhead. Yet, for some reason, not soon to be reve ..read more

    On the wall of the warehouse where I work hangs a weathered, spiral-bound, laminated booklet with the words "EMERGENCY PROCEDURE GUIDE" printed across the top. Below that is a rainbow colored array of segregated tabs that read things like: "EVACUATION," "TORNADO," "EARTHQUAKE," "FIRE," et cetera. On the very last tab, the steel blue colored one, it reads in bold white letters—"ACTIVE SHOOTER." As banal and ordinary as something like this emergency manual might seem—especially in the beigeness of a workplace setting—this bottom tab always catches my eye.     Bef ..read more

       Memphis, Tennessee—home of the blues, rock 'n' roll, barbecue pork ribs and pulled pork sandwiches, Elvis Presley's thirteen-point-eight-acre Graceland estate and the legendary Sun Studios. Like its sister city, Nashville, Memphis is popular among bands and musicians, as the city has a rich history with live music and festivals; including the very misleading Grind City Music Festival. However, I would instead direct your attention to the more seedy underbelly of the city's sordid reputation—race riots, serial killers, soaring crime rates, street gangs, the death of ..read more

      I don't know what Zapruder means in the French speaking province of Québec, but here in Texas it means something tragically specific. Around these parts (insert spittoon sound effect here) it's a historic reference to one Abraham Zapruder—a Ukrainian-born American man who filmed the very explicit assassination of United States President John F. Kennedy as he drove through Dealey Plaza in Dallas, Texas one Friday in November of 1963. Abraham is now synonymous with President Kennedy's head flowering into an Arby's beef and cheddar as well as an additional sixty years of co ..read more

  "I had drifted o’er seas without ending, Under sinister grey-clouded skies That the many-fork’d lightning is rending, That resound with hysterical cries; With the moans of invisible daemons that out of the green waters rise." -H.P. Lovecraft Nemesis     Cautious and shrewd readers might recall that the last words written within this blog about the Québécois Chadhel was a January 2023 entry regarding the release of the prior year's Failure//Downfall. They have consistently been active for the better portion of a decade. The band has produced no less than one relea ..read more

    Last we heard from Vermintide was 2022 and the band had released their debut EP, Meaningless Convulsions, the year prior. The band's budding brand of Israeli slamming death-grind was just congealing as was the band's line-up. Meaningless Convulsions was an admirable and propelling first entry. You can read my review of that release here.  Since then the band has released two full-length albums—2023's Ashamed Of My Species and early 2024's Virus Pedigree.     Ashamed Of My Species saw Vermintide as a more cultivated and developed dea ..read more

State Department spokesperson, Christine Shelley:  "We have every reason to believe that acts of genocide have occurred." Reuters correspondent, Alan Elsner:  "How many acts of genocide does it take to make genocide?”  State Department spokesperson, Christine Shelley:  “Alan, that’s just not a question that I’m in a position to answer." -During a Clinton Administration press briefing    in regards to the genocide in Rwanda.  June 10, 1994     Danish grinders, Genocide Doctrine, released their debut full-length, Sleepers, ou ..read more

    As I recall, around this time last year I was struggling trying to narrow down my 2022 top ten favorite grindcore releases due to the exceptionally strong output of material. Once again, I find myself in similar straits this year with yet another crop of amazing records to scour through. With 2023 being a year full of economical and political strife, a string of great albums to listen to is the least that can be afforded to us. What was truly unexpected was a collection of releases from bands that hadn't put material out for several years. Bands like Bandit and Organ Dealer fina ..read more

    Full disclosure time: I don't know a single thing about Grindfernö. I have never heard of them before. I don't know who is in the band, where they are from or when they were formed. Occasionally, when reviewing releases it happens that I'm not privy to any of that pertinent information. Even my cursory Google searches of Grindfernö all came up fruitless. Usually when doing these reviews I listen to the release for weeks in addition to the band's entire available back catalog. I don't even know if Grindfernö has a catalog, frankly. Although, back ..read more