Gigantic Brain "The Invasion Discography" CD
[Razorback]
63 tracks of blasting drum machine grind in 58 minutes. This is a "discography" CD, though oddly it appears as though a mere 12 (maybe 13) of the 63 tracks have actually been previously released (on the split 10" with Umbrella and possibly a compilation), everything else is entirely unreleased or has been planned for a release that has either been cancelled or yet to materialize. Of course most of the songs don't even hit the one-minute mark, so expect lots of quick bursts with tremolo picking, blasting electronic drums, insanely garbled vocal growls/sneers, and sort of a quirky sci-fi kind of edge befitting of the band name. Part of that comes from the weird watery effects on the vocals and the at times overly electronic flare of the machines, but more so from the littering of electronic textures or some rare synths - "Dehumanize" has some piano stuff that has more of a horror sort of sound to it inspired by Ninja Gaiden, and "We Become the Earth (The First Stampede)" has some keyboards mimicking music from the old Castlevania video game. Among the tracks are four brand new songs, what would have been the cancelled "Our Bovine Destroyers" full-length, a yet to be released split CD with Ganglia, a comp track, the previously mentioned split 10" with Umbrella, and a slew of totally unreleased material. Now, one thing I'll give the project credit for is being diverse. There are a lot of typical elements at work, but there are also tons of tempo changes, some clean guitars, lots of strange effects processing, some really powerful grooves, etc. The problem is that, as with most drum machine grind projects, it sounds like a one-man show. The drums are often too loud and dominant (especially during the faster areas), the guitar tone has an unnatural sheen to it that can be frustrating, and I personally don't like all of the effects floating over the vocals and some of the guitar lines. I think they're irritating and unnecessary. There's clearly talent exhibited here, but in all honesty out of nearly an hour of music there's maybe 10 minutes that I feel strongly about enjoying. I don't hate any of it, but a lot of it is boring and quite forgettable. The cover of Agoraphobic Nosebleed's "The House of Feasting" is sort of amusing as well, because being the kings of this genre of course that track jumps out as one of the better compositions herein. The layout, to put it bluntly, sucks. In my opinion, at least. It's jumbled, it's plain, I don't like the artwork or band logo... I don't know, it's generally uninformative and, aside from the cover art (which, sans the logo, is alright I guess) and the back of the booklet, looks pretty flimsy. Expect plain text and lots of large brains attacking things. No lyrics, no credits, just a mildly amusing thanks list and all that sort of stuff. I hate to judge a book by its cover, but I did here, and my assumptions sort of came true. It's not an awful disc, but it's one of the weaker releases to come from the Razorback camp, and I don't feel like these 63 tracks are ones that deserve to see a professional release from a solid label when there are a lot of other bands out there doing stronger work. This feels like decent demo material to me and is the kind of thing I'd imagine being put together by the band on CD-R or something like that. This is all my personal opinion of course, but I have a hard time justifying the need for this release, because if you really ask yourself if this is something mandatory I can't imagine the answer being, "Yes." I like the slow and chunky riffing a lot, but the fucked up electronic sounding effects all over the place are really killing it for me. I'd be unsure as to whether or not many diehards would even be into this. Oh well, you can't win 'em all. (3/10)
Running time - 58:46, Tracks: 63
[Notable tracks: The Eight Horned Beast, Animal Implant, The House of Feasting, My Aftermath, It's Been Sick... So I Tried to Feed it More]
Razorback Records - http://www.razorbackrecords.com

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