If you want to know more about the genre called 'grindcore' you should read this review, this review is about a swedish grindcore-band named ¨Nasum¨ which is now disbanded because of the death of the vocalist and guitarist Mieszko Talarczyk. He becamed one of thousands of victims in the great tsunami accident in 2004. The band released this album called ¨Shift¨, an album with 26 songs of pure madness and aggression. The grindcore bands are known because of their short songs with frenzied noise and are played with great musicianship, grindcore was invented by a band called ¨Napalm Death¨ according to the facts I have read, grindcore is a some kind of offshoot from the death-metal genre.
¨Nasum¨ used powerful, shreiking screams from vocalist and guitarist Mieszko, the screaming is very powerful and extreme, I am pretty amazed about Mieszko's 'vocals', these vocals even beats death and black-metal singers when it comes to extremness. As a guitarist Mieszko shows some skills though, the riffing is almost frantic noise with no harmony or melody. This style is very common in most of the songs in this album, there are only a few songs that has some catchy and/or melodic riffing, I can only notice one single guitar solo among all these songs. Urban Skytt is the second guitarist, he does he thing pretty good also, I don't know which of them that plays lead or rhythm but they can play with skills thats for sure. The guitars is very sharp and has not so much thickness in their sound, they are pretty raspy. Jon Lindqvist is the bass player in this album, you can hear almost anything from the bass, the guitars is too overwhelming so you can't hear the bass at all. Anders Jakobson is the key-member in this band, this guy delivers blastbeats and maniac drumming. The drumming is some of the most extreme drumming I have heard yet, I think that an equal opponent would be the a former drummer named 'Gary' in a death-metal band called ¨The Berzerker¨. Anders is also reponsible for the deep growls and other vocal parts I guess, these growls sounds pretty deep too, quite enjoying to listen to.
And now to the songs, I am not going to do a song-description on each song here, I think it would bore you as h*** so I will do my best to describe the overall sound instead. Most songs on tis album has a lifespan of one minute and 30 seconds, some songs is just above two minutes and some songs are even shorter than one minute. Every song has the same screaming which is very high, raspy and really extreme plus that you almost can't hear what Mieszko is singing about, songs that has some cool deep and demonic growls would be songs like ¨Circle Of Defeat¨, ¨Twinkle Twinkle Little Scar¨, ¨No Paradise For The Damned¨ and ¨Hets¨. The songs has plenty of frenzied drumming and blast beats, the only song that has 'slower' drumming is the song ¨Wrath¨, my only favorite song. That song is slower than any song on this album and that is the only one with some catchiness in my opinion. Enough of that, what I'm trying to say is that the songs has almost the same drum pattern which is maniac fast. The guitars is also pretty fast too, the riffing is not advanced or complicated, they sound quite simple but the riffs and shredds are played with incredible speed and skill. Some song with some variation in the guitars would be ¨Wrath¨, ¨The Deepest Hole¨ and ¨Darkness Falls¨ for example.
The things that I liked about this album was not so many, one thing that still amazes me is the incredible screaming. This type of screaming would scare any type of animal on this earth in my opinion, the screams are so d*** powerful and extreme, I wonder how Mieszko's throat would be like after singing like this one all their albums that they have made. The second thing that I thought was pretty amazing was the ultra-fast maniac drumming, the drums are not catchy to but you can't stop listen to this kind of musiciainship. The last thing that I admire about this band is the pure energy that is pulsing in every song, all songs has a massive amount of energy, the songs are not slow (except for Wrath) they are extremly fast, I wonder how many bpm's there are in every song.
Some things that I didn't enjoy was the whole album itself actually, this is my first grindcore album and I'm pretty sure that this will be my last. One thing I felt was bad was the short songs, I think that it could've been some more songs that had more catchiness and length. I also thought that there was going to be more growling, there are of course some great growls here and there but I like growls so I was a bit disppointed because of the small amount of growls. The last thing I didn't enjoy was the drums, the drum work is amazing and impressive but when the songs thunder on with the same drum patterns you will get quite tired of this album.
So there you have it, I hope this album was to any help and I hope you didn't got bored. This was a challenge, I didn't now if I would endure this kind of music, there was some this that I was very impressed about like the screaming and drumming. But I only got two or three songs that I canlisten to without any problems, the rest of the songs just got to much for me. I don't know if this is a great album or a poor album but according to fans and facts this album was a bit of a disappointment to the fans because this album sounds similar to their album ¨Human 2.0¨. But I will recommend this album to of course grindcore fans and also death-metal fans as well but I think that grindcore fans would appreciate this album and band more than death-metal people.
PROS
+ Amazing 'vocals' from now past away Mieszko (Grind In Peace)
+ The deep growls gave the sound a cool contrast
+ These types of drumming would suit extreme metal-heads
+ All the songs pukes energy and anger
CONS
- If you never have heard of this before you would reject it right away
RECOMMENDED TRACKS
-- Wrath
-- Darkness Falls
-- The Deepest Hole
-- Twinkle Twinkle Little Scar
-- No Paradise For The Damned
Overall album rating will be a: 3.5/5
