Review Summary: Filth at its finest.
It’s truly a damn shame that
In His Image is
Gripe’s swansong. On the plus side, however, that swan is more like a tar and feathered PCP addict reaping his revenge upon the townspeople who had him stricken with the colonial torture tactic. Indeed, the Georgia grindcore band’s infusion of the filthiest subgenres found in extreme metal sounds just as gruesome recorded as it does on their Bandcamp’s “tags” section.
Not much else can be expected from a band whose vinyl color of choice is entitled “dead cop” (aka blue with red splatter). And although it would be nice if the band’s apparently politically charged lyrics were decipherable, track titles (“7 Billion Reasons Not to Reproduce,” “Save a Life, Kill a Cop,” “Assisted Genocide,” etc.) and musical ferocity paint a fairly vivid picture by themselves. The eighteen tracks on
In His Image absolutely roar by in a flurry of crusty guitars dripping with grime, drums with no BPM limit and vocals possessed by something from the lower seven levels.
If
Gripe were continuing as a band, it would be worth nothing that future records should focus on that roar being a little less of a blur. Certainly, moments on
In His Image do stick out, such as the old-school death metal intro of “Sick ***,” the thick, hypnotic riff towards the end of “Cotton Fever” and the sludgy closing on “Snowden.” But
In His Image is largely an album best experienced as a whole, violent experience; the focus on catchy song ideas that bands like
Pig Destroyer and
Nails have is not something shared by
Gripe. These bands are of course not approaching the genre in the same way, but memorability is a virtue which every style of music can benefit from.
Still,
In His Image is an immediately appealing album for any fan of minute-long sonic pummelings. It’s unlikely that another album will surface from
Gripe, but at least they’ve left the genre with a quality release to commence a hopefully brutal year in extreme music.
