Splitter "Vardagsånges" CD
[Evigt Lidande]
Whew! Nine tracks of furious Swedish grindcore in less than 12 minutes, taking a tight and vicious approach that sounds not unlike Nasum meets Napalm Death, so expect no song to hit two minutes and a lot of variance from blazing speeds and tremolo picking to midpaced breaks that range from crushing death metal influences to hardcore oriented mosh rhythms; while the vocals rely mainly on snarling screams with occasional low growls to back things up. There's actually a decent amount of diversity crammed into these songs, and that definitely keeps things moving and works in the band's favor. "Situation Stockholm" is among the longer tracks and certainly employs that hefty mid-period Napalm Death influence in terms of its surging chord progressions and overall chunkiness - influences taken to a more efficient level in "Maskburen", which maximizes the contrast between memorable slower rhythms and brief fits of borderline black metal styled speeds. "Så Jävla Trasig" is a bit more frantic in its combination of erratic dissonance and unexpectedly burly death metal/pinch harmonics that I'm not too fond of, but overall the energetic speeds and catchy midpaced breaks make the track a true keeper in the end. And "Dina Två Val" even spices up the picking patterns with some thrashy palm-muting runs right near the end. But never fear, there are plenty of textbook grind ragers like "Världens Våld" and "Skitpapper". The recording's pretty good, my only complaint is that the mastering's a little blown out so there are a lot of areas where the levels max out and start clipping to light distortion, and that can definitely be irritating. But other than that, the guitars are thick yet crunchy and well honed, the percussion sounds pretty damn effective, and the vocals don't overpower the mix. The bass totally gets lost, and they do need to do a little cleaning up, but they're damn sure on the right track, and they barely need to tweak anything. The layout's all done in black and white with minimal imagery. The lyrics are in Swedish but English song explanations are included, and the content ranges from socio-political commentary on the environment, the homeless situation in Sweden, and the cycle of work, to several tracks dealing with attacks on various forms of violence and war. Not too shabby. I'm not completely blown out of the water here, but this is among the better grind I've encountered as of late, and I have no doubt that this band will get better with time, so I'm looking forward to hearing more, because this is a nice slab of material that hits hard and packs it in without sitting around for too long. (7/10)
Running time - 11:48, Tracks: 9
[Notable tracks: Maskburen, Så Jävla Trasig, Dina Två Val]
Evigt Lidande Productions - http://www.evigtlidande.com

This review has been displayed 1636 times.