The Kill
Hate Sessions
7.3
Aussie grinders The Kill bring you a compilation of two EPs, 2003’s The Soundtrack To Your Violence and 2001’s self-titled demo. With ties to a veritable who's-who of Down Under grindcore, including Blood Duster, The Day Everything Became Nothing, and Fuck...I'm Dead (I've always loved that name), The Kill play a hyperspeed brand of grindcore, not unlike the ASRA album I reviewed a month or so ago. This is raw, faster than fast, with single-kick blast-beats, no samples, and some furious and intense riffing. The vocals are mostly the high-pitched screaming—no gurgles and only a few moments of low growling. By way of both explication and comparison, the band takes their name from a Napalm Death song, and they evoke both that band and the likes of Pig Destroyer and Rotten Sound. (To further the Napalm connection, they present their own version of “The Kill” here, not terribly different from the original, but then how different could a seventeen second song possibly become?) So, yeah, it pretty much sounds like most every other grindcore release, but as 90% of grindcore reviews point out: all grindcore releases pretty much sound like most every other grindcore release. And so it goes… The Kill aren’t in danger of deposing Napalm Death or Pig Destroyer or even the late great Nasum as the pinnacle of grindcore, but they’re more than competent at what they do, and they are worthy of attention from fans of all things grinding.
On the sonic front, as the album shifts into the earlier recordings from the self-titled demo, the production gets markedly more ragged. The mix changes; the drums get muffled; the guitars get weakened considerably. The compiled nature of this particular beast makes Hate Sessions a scattered listen—six songs are presented twice—but a traditional listening experience is not the point of it. Even with spotty sound quality, in its capacity as a complete discography (thusfar) of a good grindcore unit, Hate Sessions is a success. Plus, even if they knock The Clash in one song, The Kill still gets bonus points for writing a song called “Fuck Emo.”
