Audio Kollaps "Ultima Ratio" CD
[Epistrophy]
After an insanely boring two minutes of sampled theatrical music and explosions this German unit finally unleashes a brutal attack of blistering grindcore in the vein of a slightly more punk Terrorizer. This shit is awesome... grindcore the way it ought to be: Low vocal shouts, a range of music that covers all sorts of tempos from blazing speeds to destructive breakdowns, riffing that has a heavy influence from both hardcore/punk and metal, the works! There's not a whole lot of variety at all as far as the individual songs go, they pretty much rip through a little over 40 minutes of the same style via 18 tracks, but it's still damn good for what it is. There's also a CD-Rom video for an extra track, "5 Vor 12", which looks surprisingly professional. It's in full color, and after an intro that's sort of like a spy movie or something it switches over to performance footage in what I assume is the band's practice space. The picture is crystal clear, though. It's definitely one of the best looking videos I've seen from an underground band, and the audio quality is awesome too, even if the content isn't the most interesting thing in the world. The production works out well, but a little bit of tweaking would indeed benefit them. The drums sound fine, the vocals sound perfect, and there's a little bit of bass in the background. But I would work on thickening up the guitar tone and adding more bass. The dirtiness of the distortion is fine but it needs more crunch and more low-end. The recording in the video was a little bit cleaner and heavier and it sounded fucking incredible, so something more along those lines would kick ass. The layout's okay. I like the band logo (based on the lettering from "Apocalypse Now"), and I like the simple presentation of the lyrics (plain white text on a black background, German lyrics in the first half, English translations in the last half), but the imagery could be a little bit more interesting. I don't know. It's not bad, it just doesn't catch my eye at all. The lyrics are mostly political attacks on the media, war, corruption, and that sort of thing, with a few more personal tracks thrown in as well. Going by the English translations most of the lyrics are actually better than average, too. "Obedient henchmen in the shadows of power, Tools for hypocrisy and fraud, Criminal presentation is highly acknowledged, Arbitrary use of power in the shelter of one's own rules, Dissenting is forbidden, Silent protest degenerates into a farce." All I can say is that if you're into straight up grind, you should give these dudes a spin and see what you think. I'm digging it. I could probably deal with about 10 minutes less material on the disc, as it feels a bit long, but fuck it... it rocks. (7/10)
Running time - 42:42, Tracks: 18
[Notable tracks: Die Macht Der 5 Sekunden, Alles Schwindel, Stille Schreie, Das Schweigende Heer, 5 Vor 12]
Epistrophy Records - http://www.epistrophy.de

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