Review Summary: Long Island grindcore vets reform and unleash their only release in their 20 years of on/off existence.
A familiar scene is displayed on the inside flap of the digipack that houses Social Disease’s one and only official release: a band simply jamming together and enjoying the music, each member enamored with his respective instrument. Though this all too common image is usually an attempt by mainstream acts to give their listeners the sense that they “haven’t left their underground roots,” it means something entirely different to a veteran extreme music collective like Social Disease, who, in their heyday, most likely coveted their rehearsal space as the only place whey they could truly cut loose and expunge their pent up aggression from the woes of everyday life.
Each of the first 12 tracks on this compilation/debut are individual slices of brutal, primitive grind that draw comparisons to both the genre’s originators (Napalm Death) and Social Disease’s contemporaries at the time (Terrorizer). Both the record breaking speed and vicious vocal work of the former parenthesized band and the death metal influenced riffing of the latter get equal time to shine, as does a third and most important element of Social Disease’s sound: groove. The first dozen tracks on the disc are replete with enough ear-catching, downtuned swagger to force any able-bodied metlahead to throw down in his/her own private mosh pit. (I held back the urge just long enough to type this review.) The last 15 tracks hold their own, and represent material from the band’s second recording session, which, while a bit more refined, loses none of the raw quality the introductory tracks so proudly boast.
Though this Long Island, NY band may not be the most prolific act in grindcore’s lengthy history, they champion a “quality over quantity” attitude, as they deliver groove after solid groove on Decades of Disease. If – given the band’s recent reformation – they manage to maintain the same intensity with their forthcoming output that is displayed on these nearly 20-year-old recordings, a solid back to the basics movement for extreme metal may be at hand. Someone please sign these guys (I’m looking at you, Relapse).
