Thetan : "Grand Ole Agony"

 Over the years I have not only warmed up to grind core, but a few of my favorite heavy bands are at least influenced by it...Portrayal of Guilt, Nails and Wormrot. Perhaps those bands set the bar high, but this band likes to experiment so perhaps they will live up to their hype. The first song has a spoken word outburst from Crunchy Black, to remind you they fuck wit hip hop. The song itself is the typical tantrum you might expect. Things do not get interesting until the second song where we here more deliberate nuance. "White Sheets Blowing in the Breeze" benefits from the thump of the over driven bass and the punk attitude infused into the vocals. They also give themselves more time to develop songs than you might expect from this sort of thing. 

"Bless Your Heart" blasts forward with burly bass drive the angry punk snarl. The feedback bleeds into "Gutted".  Strings haunt this song, as it lurches into a more tortured vibe that carries a crusty sludge feel. The Lost Dog Street Band helps them out at times with the more organic country flavored instrumentation, where David Brenner of Gridfailure adds some textured effects to provide more sonic trappings. Despite being two minutes long "Sad Endings and a Feeling of Disappointment" is more of an interlude than an actual song.  It feels like they come closer to a Fistula like crunch for "Coup De Grace" . They throw themselves into a more reckless punk mania on "Culo", which might be the album least impressive moment, but it still works for what they are doing. 

There is a more fuzzed out pound going into "Note to Self" that finds it's power diminished when sped up into a feral frenzy. It lingers before throwing themselves down the stairs toward chaos, which might be the tragic trajectory that separates, power violence from grind core. "Eulogy" finds strings returning, but I am unsure if this justifies a 14 minute song. The first two and a half minutes of a mournful blue grass tinged jam make sense. When they stomp in with their sludged out rumble it still works pretty well. By the 8 minute mark even the solo by Mac Gollehon still feels like this song has droned out into over indulgence. It however is not a total deal breaker since most of the songs are rather compressed. I will give this album an 8.5, I enjoyed it more than I expected.The album drops October 13th.