Review of Various Artists - 10th Year Of Obscene

Synopsis:
Grindcore retrospective sampler

Review:
Ah, fuck yeah. After a month of reviewing stuff that ranged from pretentious to desperately dull, with only one real record worth recommending, I get to give my musical tastes a little enema in the form of Ten Years Of Obscene, a self congratulatory retrospective of some pretty filthy fucking grindcore. And you know, it hurts but it cleanses. Grindcore is like that, in my opinion: not something you actively seek out, so much, or get all excited about, because rarely is it memorable or challenging intellectually. You can point to the Nasums, Napalms and Cephalics as exceptions, but they prove the rule. If I may paraphrase Trent Reznor from the masterpiece that was Broken, "This shit‘s not meant to last, this is for right now."

For me modern grindcore kind of takes over from where Rudimentary Peni, the first Neurosis record and the original English HARDCORE bands left off. You listen to it for textures and visceral reactions, not so much for musical enjoyment. I once described it as the musical equivalent of playing defensive tackle. If you break it down, not much is going on besides moments of pure aggression and extreme pain followed by moments of dazed recuperation. How the fuck is that fun? I can’t explain, but I know I kept going back in and doing it again (when they let me - I was big but I sucked at sports).

In a kind of ironic little twist I find myself actually enjoying listening to this sampler more than I do LPs by any of these given bands. It goes back to texture and reaction, and this sampler is a smorgasbord of said tactile musicality. This is short, blasting snippets of several band’s work mixed up for your pleasure, and it works perfectly. You can get a bellyfull of grind in a hurry if the same band is doing essentially the same thing over and over again without some kind of real melody or distinct riffage for your brain to grab hold of. But here the variety of sounds serves the listener well. It’s fun, fast and over before you know it so you can grab that next Traditional Progrock Power Shitfest record for review with a renewed sense of vitality and hatred.

The bands found here are as follows: Squash Bowels; Ingrowing; Extreme Noise Terror; Abortion; N.C.C.; Cripple Bastards; Phobia; Fleshless; Isacaarum; Garbage Disposal; Kaviar Kavalier; Lykathia Aflame; Impetigo; Gride; Agothacles; Malignant Tumor; Decomposed; Psychopathia and Hermaphrodite. It's a veritable who’s who of something or other. My personal high points are Isacaarum’s “Teenage Cunt Power Play” with its moving opening refrain “Just Shut Up!“, Impetigo’s rendition of “Dear Uncle Creepy”, Cripple Bastards’ “Respect or Death”, the positively EPIC (5 plus minutes long!!!!) grindcore mini opera “Land Where Sympathy is Air” from Lykathia Aflame and N.C.C.’s "Technology Spells Doom For Popular Relationship-Maintaining" which you can tell by the title is a thoughtful treatise on the difficulties of keeping love alive in an age of internet impersonality as sung by herpetic warthogs drowning in a vast pool of their own shit.

Now, all that said, this is just a fucking grindcore record. That’s all it is. Don’t let my joy fool you or anything. Most of this stuff is not going to be causing you to forego listening to Leng Tche or anything. Lykathia Aflame, Isacaarum and N.C.C. are the bands that stood out to me as perhaps worthy of extra attention, but for the most part it’s just a bunch of short, viscous, heavy grindcore songs mixed up and presented on one CD. It’s a great little respite, and if you like grind but not necessarily entore albums of one band’s take on it, this is a good deal. But don’t approach with expectations of heretofore hidden treasures to spur your metal safaris to come. It’s just a cool CD, nothing more, nothing less.

Release Details

Various Artists

10th Year Of Obscene

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