King Parrot : "A Young Person's Guide to King Parrot"

Things have changed for this band after being on tour with the likes of Pantera. The band's first album, I could not get past the vocals, and this time around, the vocals work for me as they are not just a shrieking like The Body, but balanced with a more powerful growl. Plenty confrontational but more refined, and following a song structure in this evolution from being a more spastic grind core band, to more of a death metal band, I guess we can say death grind, as their is more emphasis on the riffs. 

The higher snarled vocals are still present and trade off with the lower death metal vocals. They throw themselves into a more punk thrashing for "It's a Rort". The best part of the song is when they hit the more thrashing hook of a riff, though the general vibe is frantic. At almost three and a half minutes, this an epic for these guys. They throw blast beats into things. The cops show up in the middle of the song before they go into a hardcore riff.  "Punish the Runt" blasts ahead in a more in-your-face fashion. There is a guitar solo that adds to the layer of sound, but it's pretty much just a punk pounder. There is a cool riff that crops up in it, but the rule here has always been "cool riffs alone do not a good song make". 

"Target Pig Elite" has more of a stomp to it. It is the sound of giving your middle finger to the "pig elite". Impressive drumming. The drummer goes in a more thrashing punk direction for the way "I Got the Right" attacks. "Look Away, I'm Hideous" follows a similar direction as the previous song. "Glazed and Diseased in Defeat". balances out the chaos with more deliberate riffing. They have learned they need the riffs that might appeal to a Pantera fan, but are not giving up on grind-core. I'll give this album an 8, as it is an improvement over what I recall hearing from them before this era. 

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