Review of Leng Tch'e - The Process of Elimination

First off, I work in a shitty office cube, and that cover has come close to being reality several times for me.

Anyway, Belgium’s most extreme export, the Tch’e return for their third offering of violently humorous razorgrind and despite residing on Relapse, they have made no concessions. Armed with a new label and shuffled lineup, Leng Tch’e is basically the same early Blood Duster/Nasum combination of down tuned grooves, boisterous humor and razor sharp power chords that made their last two efforts simple yet satisfying takes on grindcore’s usually tepid noise. Driven be Belgium’s answer to Dan Swano, Sven de Caluwe (In-Quest, Aborted) plays drums in this particular band and weighted by a typical Tue Madsen (Aborted, In-Quest, Mnemic, Heaven Shall Burn) production, Leng Tch’e don’t deviate from the tried and true grindcore formula and as far as grindcore goes are actually one of the more amiable bands in the genre.

Still delivering some humorous social monologues with tracks like “Don’t Touch my Spandex”, “Another Hit Single”, “Bobby Joe’s Slumber Party” and “Fat Camp”, Leng Tch’e now also show a more serious side tackling subjects from reality TV absurdity (“Reality? TV”), misguided materialism (“Remote Controlled”), social apathy (“Derisive Conscience”, “Clarity Denied”) and rampant superficial patriotism (“Patriotic Pleasure”). Napalm Death would be proud. Generally, the humorous tracks are the punkier, Blood Duster-like groove laden affairs, while the serious tracks are seething, no nonsense blasters matching the lyrical unrest with equally fervent hyper grind. Want some thick, catchy grooves- forward to “Glamourgirl Concubine” or “Testosterone Collar”. Want some scathing ass ripping grindage and more menacing, biting breakdowns -go to “Ingest/Dissent” or “Schematic”. Picking out favorite tracks is like picking your favorite pube on a porn star; they all are basically the same and all belong to the same sweating, heaving glob of meat, but you’d like to watch anyway. That being said the brilliant Hammond section of "P.I.M.P" might be my favorite momemnt on any grind album. Truth be told though, I’m far more likely to listen to Sven's other projects.

Granted, despite the albums visceral feel, it is still just grindcore, so it's limited by the genre; dual gurgled/screamed vocals, short often uneventful songs, lots of songs (24), and the sometimes forced need to be humorous. Thankfully though, the grindcore obsession with obscure porno/horror movie samples is on the back burner. Even with those limitations, Leng Tch’e show that they must easily be considered the heir apparent to the tragically vacant grindcore throne left by Nasum.

Release Details

Leng Tch'e

The Process of Elimination

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