When I was forming my taste in metal back in California, grind was very hard to come by. I was not yet in the know with mediafire links and blogs streaming full albums. I had to do things the old-fashioned way, where I would sit down in front of Soulseek with a copy of Decibel and, if that yielded no results (and it usually didn't), I would hit the record store once a week to comb through the albums that they had available and buy a few of the lesser-known or more interesting sounding selections. None of my friends listened to grind (and the ones in California still mostly don't). It was like walking to school uphill in the snow, barefoot over broken glass with a bag of gleaming hog entrails strung around your neck, only worse. Yeah, it was much worse. I mean, the record store only ever carried one Nasum album (!??!!??), and the closest thing we had to a good underground record store in Bakersfield was FYE (!!!!!!!!!!!!!).
God I hate that place.
Now I've moved into the early 21st century and can easily steal whatever I want whenever I get drunk and decide that I must have it immediately. Then, if the file is clearly labeled or I just don't forget that I downloaded it all together, I get to listen to whatever my heart desires. It's fantastic, and a lifestyle that I suggest to all of you out there in the blogmosphere.
As if you aren't already doing exactly that!
Rotten Sound is one of my newest musical obsessions, and I can honestly say that I feel like a stupid bunghole for having missed the Rotten Sound boat for so long. I've heard about Rotten Sound. I've heard lots about Rotten Sound. And then what do I do? I just skip listening to them for no reason. I feel like that guy who just stayed home, saying "Oh I'll check out that band later," and then doesn't do it, but then finally does, all without leaving the comfort of my home. And do you know why I feel like that guy? I AM THAT FUCKING GUY!
And the calls are coming from inside the house....
Cursed is a churning, whirring, blunt force trauma to the skull kind of album. The opening track starts of with a heaping teaspoon of mondo brutalez (the single most br00tal ingredient for cooking br00tal meals) and starts kicking like a frightened emu when you sneak onto the emu farm where Highway 71 meets Highway 10. Turns out, emus are afraid of grown men wearing nothing but graduation robes and they'll kick the shit out of you. Rotten Sound are like that, except instead of being battered and bloodied, you'll just feel that way, and instead of having a broken rib and bruised kidneys, you'll have just listened to a record at your home rather than being mercilessly assaulted by emu.
It looks like a cartoon character, but it's a killing machine made of delicious red meat.
One thing you can really say for Rotten Sound is that they can write a good song with some pretty sweet "hooks," which in grind speak actually means "parts that aren't blastbeats." Cursed grinds in all the right places, slowly smolders in all the right places, and explodes like my bowels after my third cup of coffee in the morning. Unlike my bowel explosions, however, Cursed is invigorating and welcome rather than painful and frightening. Actually I should amend that; I was playing Rotten Sound at work the other day, and based on the super-hot salesgirl's reaction to the music, people are plenty frightened of Rotten Sound. They just have to be blond and attractive and like Trace Adkins. But at least after I listen to Cursed, people just ask me to put on the Old School Rap channel on our Pandora rather than demanding that I spray the bathroom with Lysol and go home so they don't have to smell me anymore.
And I need the money.
If you aren't listening to Rotten Sound, you should be, so you should follow your nose to the bone-crushing onslaught of our grind masters, and if you're the kind of guy who would like to date the pretty blond saleswoman in your office, you should maybe listen to it through headphones so she doesn't suspect that you want to chop her up and wear her face. Because that's somehow the conclusion she'll automatically jump to. Trust me.
Cursed is definitely one of the best albums of 2011 and I loved this post. Also, emus are absolutely demon spawn, highfalutin bastards!
ReplyDeleteYou said lots of things that are true there, brah. And emus can be surprisingly highfaluting, when they aren't being falsely modest or acting coy about their grotesque neck feathers.
ReplyDeleteThey make we want to fucking puke, now that I think about it.