Rotten Sound : "Apocalypse"

 This band is one of the bigger names in grind core. This gives me higher expectations for them. I understand they are working within the confines of the genre , but the album starts off with some rather uniform burst of anger. In fact first two songs might as well have been the same song. It is not until the head banging groove of "Sharing" that I find something that makes my ears perk up. True to the genre they keep things typically under two minutes. This formula does not allow for much in the way of dynamics or songwriting, which is normally my complaint, though given that I like bands like Wormrot and Portrayal of Guilt, short songs is no excuse. 

Lyrically they rage against the machine, which in Finland seems like they are doing it out of punk expectations. I am able to tell when it changes from song to song. That gives them more credit than the bulk of bands doing this kind of thing. "Newsflash" feels like watered down Napalm Death, but with less interesting riffs. The death metal elements in "Digital Bliss" stands out amongst the blur of the rushed punk fueled riffing. Some of these explosions of sound are more urgent than others. It is not until things get more deliberate on "Denialist' that I hear any interest in songwriting. But even then they do not manage to maintain it more the song's meager minute and forty five seconds and speed it up so it sounds like all the other songs here. I am not even what the purpose of writing a song under 30 seconds is. However "Fight Back' does feel longer than it's minute and four seconds.

 When they blast at you in hyper speed, there is very little point and it feels like noise. This makes a song like "Patriots" just feel like a death metal temper tantrum. There are a few riffs here and there that seem cool, leaving them to feel wasted in the songs they are used in. The rule here is cool riffs alone does not a good song make, and it is felt hard on this album. At almost two minutes long "Empowered" is an opus for these guys. but it is not their best use of time. One cool riff crops up but only for a second. The last two songs sound almost the same. I will give this a 5, as they captured the sound they are looking for and if you are into the sound then you might care less about the songs, otherwise well I think I made my thoughts clear, they are short songs so you are not tortured for long. 

Rotten Sound : "Abuse to Suffer"

I went into 2016 saying this is the year grind core is going to break bigger and here is a band that will help lead the cause . Even"Cursed" was the first album by this Finnish band that I really paid attention to, these guys are no strangers to the game.  How much of a song can you establish in 47 seconds? Not much it just sounds like someone is demoing song ideas to the rest of their band to write something off of. It takes at least two minutes to get into the brutal groove of these guys which "Fear of Shadows' does a better job of accomplishing. These bursts of songs are very punishing so its hard to image not being numbed out by the type of beating a song like "Trashmonger" dishes out if it were to have go over the two minute mark.

The production is very dense. The guitars hit you like a wall, with the drums sometimes getting lost in the storm of distortion.The vocals are mid to low range growls. There is a cool riff in "Crooked", but you know the rule here is cool riffs alone do not make a good song. The first song that breaks the two minute threshold is the slower grinding pulse of "Time For the Fix". This allows for the song to feel like it is more fully realized than the songs that proceeded it. The most effective under a minute burst is "Slave to the Rats". It goes from a blast to thick neck crushing groove in under 52 seconds. They hit two minutes again with "Brainwashed" which is more straight forward for these guys. The drumming is impressive throughout the album, but this song might be on the album's high light reel.

At times the more hard core side of the band comes out as displayed on "Cannon Fodder' that also find the band adopting an almost Entombed like thickness to the riffing.Without question this is heavy as all fuck. Sometimes this heavy get's the benefit of varied tempos on the more sludge like trudge of "Yellow Pain". The vocals on this one go up into a higher curdling shriek. The mood over all on this song stands out from the nine songs before it. A song like "Machine"takes the album title literally. It's pretty effective even into the spastic out bursts of insane speed. Burly bass leads into the beastly blast of " the Clerk" that possesses a mammoth rumble, the following song "Caged" could have been the next logical progression if this was a more adventurous genre .

The minute long "Retaliation" is all teeth, which works if there was somewhere else to go, but their economic sense of song writing leaves the band frequently painted into a corner. "Inhumane Treatment" finds the band much more effective at crushing you when given two minutes to work with. When they kick up the gears too fast for their own good the song does stumble a little.The last song has a cool ending, but this song is the exception to the rule and the band doesn't make the most with the time they are given. I'll give this one a 7.5. Some of these little ditties are compact grenades of heaviness the rest are cool riffs here and there, but need more to them. If this is your thing and you are really ADD, then not only has this review been to long for you, but you can round it up.