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FORMLESS MASTER / BAYHT LAHM - No Chords Barred split
Horror Pain Gore Death Productions
Ladies and Gentlemen (and to you confused ones) I do not have the "rona". But I do have a huge case of the out of work and going fucking nuts blues because of this damm lockdown. A friend told me well I'll have plenty of time to write about releases. Seriously you wanna go there? Let me tell ya something. Unless it's extreme to the point where the music conveys more anger and disgust then what's in me now. I take a pass on it. Thankfully this came in from a guaranteed source of insane sounding releases. What we have here are two bands unknown to me but have made my time in lock up today better after I played this than before.
The first act, FORMLESS MASTER (which could be a reference to the gov't), hail from Minnesota but have Takafumi Matsubara of GRIDLINK (from my birthplace Hoboken, New Jersey) on guitar and bass. They also boast three vocalists but hey it's basically shrieking and growling. Also there's two members of INVIDIOSUS, another HPDG roster act, here so it's a side project of sorts. Something I've learned over the years is that if Matsubara is involved then you've got insane experimental grind in your face. Their four cuts on here are Bruce Lee inspired.
The second act in this grind bout are BAYHT LAHM, a two piece band (guitar, drums and vocals) who hail from Perth Amboy, New Jersey. No offense but back in the 70's when I was still living in Jersey, we looked at that town as an armpit. But in all fairness any place south of Fairview was an armpit back then. To their credit nowadays the place is an amazing Hispanic majority community. I still have family in New Jersey so they tell me everything. Anyways this duo's four cuts are more primitive grind in style and lyrically political. Hmmm, maybe their town is still an armpit.
Well as always I treat split releases as bouts kinda like wrestling, the former sport of kings. Give me early ECW (flying metal chairs and all) or give me death. So for this one it's FORMLESS MASTER as the clear winner. I say that simply because with a tag team partner like Takafumi Matsubara in your corner the baby-faces from NJ didn't have a chance. Now if I could only put a figure four leg lock on my State governor and get him to tap out.
http://www.horrorpaingoredeath.com/
https://hpgd.bandcamp.com/album/no-chords-barred
RETORTION TERROR - Self Titled EP
Horror Pain Gore Death Productions
Well fuck me running! Seeing that the past couple of weeks I've been inundated with a lot of slow music. I'm half in the bag with a cold. And oh yeah I decided to have more than a few beers last night. Then I check this one out. I didn't even read about it before I hit play. No that would be five seconds later after I turned down the volume a little. I figure it's from HPGD then it'll be good. I was actually expecting some soothing death metal but alas.
Anyways this is the first proper release by RETORTION TERROR. Prior to this they put out a split with INVIDIOSUS which was also on HPGD Productions. RETORTION TERROR's claim to fame is that it features guitarist Takafumi Matsubara of GRIDLINK. Now I've got a funny GRIDLINK story for ya but before that let me give ya some history. If you haven't been following along then maybe you didn't know that a few years back Takafumi Matsubara had to retire from playing because of a disease that made him fucked up in the head. Well thankfully he's ok now and back to creating music.
As for my GRIDLINK story, alright so around a decade ago I did a review for GRIDLINK's debut CD. Let's just say I wasn't impressed with it. Yes I know you're shocked. Now afterwards I saw a review of it from a website that caters to hipsters. So at that time I was also a member of a few metal discussion sites. Don't laugh because you were probably involved with a few yourself. Anyways I had this audacious idea that if I posted links to my reviews on the sites then I'd get more people checking out my blog.
Well it didn't work out so well. You see when I posted my review of GRIDLINK's debut release I also included the statement "Grindcore for Brooklyn hipsters who just discovered a Korean Tofu BBQ food truck." So yeah I got banned from one site. Two others, which were basically controlled by a few douche-bags, really trashed me every way you could think. Oh well I learned a lesson. But still I can honestly say I never got into GRIDLINK.
But I sure as hell like RETORTION TERROR. This is death grind pure and simple. First off the vocals by Kiyo Nishihara of Japan's WORLD END MAN are deep, ferocious and threatening. Musically this is straight at your throat to crush and kill type grind. We're talking old school punishing riff type of stuff which I've always liked. Matsubara finally cuts loose into his trademark guitar wankery at the end of this release. Hey it's only a six and a half minute release. In the end I'll take this over GRIDLINK any day.
http://www.horrorpaingoredeath.com/
https://hpgd.bandcamp.com/album/retortion-terror
