Review Summary: Short fuse, modest bang.
Following the clamour of the sax-addled barnburner
Chatta (2020) and their game-changing everything-bending opus of fuck
Swatta (2023), Chepang’s latest grindcore bloodbaby
Jhyappa is branded as their most personal record---something which may well be true in the most matter-of-fact sense imaginable. The two central truths to Chepang – that they are a band of (mostly) Nepali immigrants based in NYC, and that they play mean shitting grindcore – are swiftly and unceremoniously evidenced in the introductory track “Parichaya 2.0 (Intro)”. One hears a flute performance of inferable heritage, followed by a single, mean-tempered riff, repeated loudly and straightforwardly enough that you will not mistake it for anything else; the two sides of the band are laid out, are introduced, are there. Sparks don’t so much fly between the two as much as they invite us stare at each and acknowledge it for what it is. This rather unassuming style of exposition recurs throughout the album (per the Nepali spoken word opening "Khel” and the folk coda to “Bidhai (Outro)”), yet while it is encouraging to hear the band proudly wearing their colours in ways that their Nepali lyrics can’t emphasise alone, this largely scans as a side-serving alongside what is otherwise a disarmingly straight-laced record.
Directly from the grindcore playbook comes as much traditional riffage from hardcore ("Shakti (Force)") and death metal ("Nirnaya”) as you can fit into a 19-minute album, and although the band’s manic performance style and – especially! – sense of groove distinguish it within the genre, it’s a struggle to credit it with the same X-factor that they flexed in spades across their last records. The likes of “Ek Hajar Jhur” and the blistering album highlight “Spasata Ko Khoji Ma” rip as hard as anything you’ll hear this year, but Chepang make no effort to disguise that their take on a beatdown is, for all intents and purposes, suspiciously interchangeable with anyone else’s this time around.
Is this a disappointment? Some would certainly say so. Back in 2023, I opened my review on
Swatta inspired by its dual eagerness to double down and springboard off grindcore’s core components; that album found me at a time when I was tired of petulant armchair critics apologising disingenuously for the same genre tropes they should be affirming, lacking the guts to take it as read that ‘refinement’ is as virtuous as the novelty-hawking 'innovation' they fetishise to the detriment of anything else. However,
Swatta was such a rich record, such an explosive unpacking and repacking of everything in- and out-side grindcore's proverbial box that anyone either side of that argument could ultimately have their cake and eat it.
Jhyappa, on the other hand, really puts my standpoint to the test. Its move to shrug off the experimentalism of its predecessors is a bold one, and its decision to play a familiar genre often dismissed for its stagnancy at almost entirely face-value is bolder still. I can’t in good conscience claim that it excites me anything like as much as the exoticised, jazzified, reimagined manglings Chepang have previously hewn from grind, but – perhaps more importantly – there
is something affirming in hearing such a talented group throw their weight behind such chunky meat-and-potatoes tropeplay as though their chief, perplexingly humble aim is to prove themselves entirely within the confines of the textbook. In this regard, at least, one can call them decently successful. Does it live up to the creatively-infused takes they’ve previously built up from faithful engagement with genre bedrock? Don’t call me.
