Album Review: Houkago Grind Time - Koncertos Of Kawaiiness
Reviewed by Eric Clifford
I’ve a modest appreciation for anime. Especially in my teens I was consuming it with voracious appetite, but over time the hunger subsided and these days I dabble occasionally, but with nothing remotely approaching the fervour of days past. I don’t know, there could be something sad in that I suppose, the way that as I get older my interests inevitably narrow down to a solid core of activities integral to who I am. But I’m not like the other girls. There are those among us for whom anime forms an obsession. We call these...culturally enriched individuals “weebs”, and if they are to be thanked for anything, well, let them be thanked for Houkago Grind Time.
Before you are presented 18 tracks and 20 minutes of raw goregrind majesty. The hallmarks of the genre are present and correct; incensed percussion anywhere north of the sound barrier, belt sander string tones, vocals pitch shifted to some subterranean region nestled below the planet’s mantle. But the album is content to hurl curveballs too; solos, unusually accomplished ones for the genre, are sprinkled liberally throughout. Riffs that buck the standard meter trend of 4/4, and explorations of Oi! Punk. The album cauterises your nerves with a conventional blasturbation fest but always makes sure to inject less well worn elements into the genre. The result? A tectonically heavy speed demon of an album that exemplifies everything I love about grind while defining itself as a separate entity to it’s competitors. Scorching barrages of riffs saw down into the marrow of your being at a million miles a minute atop a suffocating bombardment of drum work, all the while a pulsing, gurgling intestinal tract of bass growls hefty and malign below.
There really is scant cause for complaint here. Music like this is obviously something of a special interest – even grind fans can split as we travel further and further into even more unsociable corners of the Grind genre. To that extent this wholehearted and full throated endorsement comes with the caveat that good as this is, it simply will not appeal to most metalheads. But that’s fine; no one playing this stuff is under the impression that glory and renown await them. It’s not like anyone ever grabbed their guitar going “that’s it! I’ll play goregrind! Where bitches and riches are known to lie in abundance!”. Aside from that the only thing I could sort-of point to as a flaw is the samples. They’re short and relatively unintrusive but even so, I’ve virtually never felt that samples or skits add anything worth having to the music. It doesn’t subtract overall from my regard for the album but if I was to isolate any one element that I feel the album could do without, it would be these samples.
Goregrind is music for splatter fans with ADHD. But the crux of this album’s success is that it’s approach of unconventional flair upon a solid bed of exceptionally written and performed traditional goregrind simply works so well it seems effortless. If Sulfuric Cautery, Last Days of Humanity, Human Effluence, or any number of other savagery purveyors have found their way into your easy listening playlist then I can imagine you having an absolute riot with this.
