Review Summary: An impressive album, featuring all the classic ingredients to make a fine math/grind outing.
In terms of extremity, The Sawtooth Grin were a band that excelled in making cacophonous music that was quite possibly as extreme as you are likely to get. Their sound is comparable to bands such as The Number Twelve Looks Like You, Daughters and even Converge (it is mostly the vocals that can be compared to Jacob Bannon's fiendish shrieks). From the opening track Give Me the Amulet You Bitch, the listener is barraged with a mix of blastbeats, extremely dissonant and constantly shifting guitar riffs and an absolutely manic vocal performance. The high screams prevalent on the album are well executed and some of the highs attained are utterly ear shattering.
The band also make use of the odd jazzy section (this seems common amongst newer grind bands) as demonstrated on
the track A 2 Minute Lecture On the Finer Points of Instability, during its middle section. The jazz-esque riffs are utilized very well and seamlessly blend in between the ferocious mathcore and grind sections. Whilst each of the main tracks on Cuddlemonster do tend to have similar characteristics, each song is differentiable from one another. Album highlight, Please *** All Over Me I Love It is quite an impressive conglomerate of dissonant, technical guitar work as well as an eerie clean section with somewhat disturbing clean vocals. The penultimate track, Satan Would Sit In the Smoking Section is another impressive track - whilst it is barely over a minute long, it is impressive and interesting that the band manage to fit in so much.
Cuddlemonster closes with an instrumental - simple but highly listenable, a jazz riff is repeated over the top of a basic rhythm on the drums. It is a nice breather from all the chaos showcased on the album and doesn't present itself as a prolonged waste of time (so many bands have closing instrumentals that just drag on). So, in conclusion, Cuddlemonster is a savage display of extremely listenable math/grind. The riffs twist and turn in all sorts of directions and the drumming compliments them wonderfully. As for the vocal performance, it is nothing short of a miracle as to how he achieves those highs. However, it is certain that this album delivers what many math/grind fans want.
Recommended Tracks
A 2 Minute Lecture on the Finer Points of Instability
Satan Would Sit In the Smoking Area
Good Touch Bad Touch 123
