Review Summary: "All we need now is the perfect...nasum."
Nasum was a pivotal grindcore band from Sweden. They split up in 2004 after the death of guitarist/vocalist Miezsko Talarczyk.
Grind Finale was released posthumously in 2006 by guitarist/bassist Anders Jakobson. It is a compilation of all Nasum's non-album recordings and holds the records for most songs on an album.
To start, this album absolutely astounds me. How any band could possibly have 152 such mind-blowing songs that DIDN'T make it to an album is beyond my comprehension. Nasum played a perfect yet endlessly malleable style of death-grind, and every one of their style changes and experimentation can be heard on this record.
According to
Grind Finale's abundant and descriptive liner notes, Nasum got it's beginnings when original drummer/vocalist Rickard Alriksson and aforementioned Anders Jakobson were writing songs for their death metal band
Necrony. They began jamming short grindcore songs, and thus they started a new band with mutual friend Miezsko Talarczyk, and Nasum was born. The band's death metal influence is obvious in the first few recordings. A truly enjoyable part of
Grind Finale is hearing the band progress sonically. The first songs are obviously death-influenced, while later recordings sound more grindcore with strong ties to
Repulsion. By the time you reach the second disc of this album, Nasum's lineup will have shuffled several times, but the band's sound will have reached a perfect blend of death metal, grind, and eventual leading man Miezsko's endless supply of juicy riffage.
While Nasum experiment and evolve within the 11 years spanned on
Grind Finale, they stay consistent in one way: their undying loyalty to their music. Unbelievable it may be, but there is no filler on this 2-disc, 2-hour record. Apart from a handful of laughable 4-second tracks such as "Rens" and "Red Tape Suckers," every other song consists of impassioned and caustic (albeit variant in style) vocals encased in an incredibly catchy hook-riff. If you're skeptical, feast your ears on the dual vocals in "See the *** (With Your Own Eyes)" and try to keep your pants dry. Now imagine a hundred and forty-odd MORE tracks containing just as many, if not more, similar auditory orgasms.
Yes,
Grind Finale is a sort of "Best of..." album, and yes, Nasum have released several excellent "true" albums in their 11-year run, but
Grind Finale is a collection of songs that are all at once entertaining, thought-inducing, funny, and above all just bloody
brilliant. It's like a tape-recorded documentary of a true band, one that plays music because they ***ing want to and play grindcore because that's what they ***ing like and THAT, my friends, is how it should be ***ing done.
5/5
