Review Summary: A Great grind record that will keep you coming back for more...GRIND!!!
o you fancy some grind eh?. Well it would appear you are in the right place my friends. Enter Insect warfare’s debut EP “At War With Grindcore”. Insect warfare is a 3 piece grind band from Texas and this EP is a clear indication that grind is indeed alive and kicking. Too many people say that grind is dead but I just have to disagree when am faced with this EP. Insect warfare does a great job of making blazingly fast, in your face grind that is just vicious and quite relentless. On this debut a lot of classic sounds are boasted like super loud, crunchy guitar, snarling, growling screams and of course…thee blast beat. But with all those staples of typical grind comes a really strong sense of interplay between these guys creating this “in the moment” feel that gives this album great variety and a thrilling listen from beginning to end.
Insect warfare does a really great job of keeping things fresh for the duration of this EP. These guys aren’t playing fast for the sake of doing so, every time they do decide to blast your face off however they do it tastefully, ( if you will allow me to use such a word to describe grind) and in a very exciting way. But when these guys want to slow it down a bit they do it with the same Fennec and skill as they would if they were “blasting”. Lets just say these guys know there way around there instruments.
Another great thing about this album is that it feels a bit like a throw back. A lot of these riffs and beats and just the over all sound of the music sounds like something napalm Death would have released, maybe even terrorizer would have done and that’s exciting to me. And at the same time I would never say these songs sound “old” or “stale”. The thing that makes this feel like a throw back the most is without a doubt the writing. These songs have a great deal of progression like a lot of old grind from the genres prime years. Some of these tracks start off with blood pumping blast beats and high shrieked vocals and pound down into a slower more doom like riff with these low guttural bellows and then all of a sudden just jump right back into blasting your face off!. Because this album is only 8 minutes long, its nice to have progression and change happen over the course of those skull crushingly intense 8 minutes.
Now lets talk a bit about the production. So as I mentioned before this is a three piece there for now bass player. Am glad to say however that this does not take anything away from the music and that the bottom end on this album is better then on a lot of grind records with bass players!. The way the music is produced really lends to the flow and energy of this record I think, coming off as very grimy and muddy but at the same time you can make out every thing well. The vocals have a strange sound, while they are dry as far as effects go, they are sort of buried in the mix giving them a really dense, overwhelmingly muffled sound. The guitars and drums are well mixed and the snare is really tight and the symbols are bright and harsh so they sort of highlight all the riff work.
If you like your grind fast, harsh, abrasive and thrilling ( who doesn’t?) then get this record. You will not be disappointed. Sort review, short album, hope you enjoyed it. Thanks for reading
