QUILLS
Quills
Galy
8 / 10 Track listing:
01. I Sank Your Battleship
02. Your Own Reality
03. Flight 19
04. In the Flickering Light
05. One Year Under Ten Seconds
06. Placing the Blame
07. When I Grow Up, I Want To Be a Robot
08. Held By a Broken Hand
Hoarse vocals, flailing blast beats and odd skronky guitar chords in a seven-minute maelstrom — if you want grind, you got it! This Baltimore band, sporting current and former members of MISERY INDEX and SWARM OF THE LOTUS, shreds flesh with quickness and lethal intensity on this, their debut LP (also available on 7" from an even smaller and more obscure label, natch).
What's cool about the QUILLS approach is that it's a bit more linear than the usual math-splatter in fashion today. These guys hearken back to a time when bands like BRUTAL TRUTH could create ugliness, but still kinda thrash out too – there's definitely some mid-to-late-'90s hardcore influence here, including honest-to-Christ breakdown action, and insane-o riffs that actually get repeated four or eight times, long enough to latch on to them.
And if that sounds too staid and boring for you, keep in mind the whole thing's still seven fucking minutes long. It's still pretty damn brutal and would make 99.9% of the earth's population cry — it just happens to have some memorable parts as well, which isn't a crime (well, maybe a fashion faux-pas these days, but that's it). The end result is something all too rare: a short grind album that actually makes you wish it was a bit longer.
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