Punk double feature: The LTP/Skverna split & Bricks demo (2012, both)

Bricks plays heavy, bludgeon-like hardcore that smashes everything in its way much like a wrecking ball trying to clobber its way through the Great Wall of China. It ain't pretty, but it's violent and ugly, and that's most of what I look for in hardcore.

I didn't review this when it washed up in my review pile because I was mostly listening to OldSadBastardMusic like Leonard Cohen at the time. Now that spring has thawed out my inner punk geek, I dig this. Since I already panned Hoax once this week, I might as well do it again: Bricks is as heavy as Hoax without being so conscious of its own status as hardcore godheads, which makes this less self-conscious. The result is heavy, ugly hardcore that you can slam your way into oblivion to, without having to be the coolest kid in yr local scene. Throw this one on when you're so sick of Negative Approach that you can sing "Nothing" walking down the street, a cappella, in the June sunshine.

Get barbaric with Bricks over here.

Grindcore has never been my brand of noise. It always sounded like the noise J.R.R. Tolkien's orcs would make while marching off to war, and nothing else: nihilistic parody taken to its extreme. Far be it for me to deny anyone else their preferred type of aural annihilation, though. Especially when said annihilation is coming from Siberia, of all places.

In a frozen wasteland that used to be populated by future star humanitarians like the young Josef Stalin, grindcore might actually make sense. Enter The LTP and Skverna's split. The LTP deliver several tracks of heavy hardcore that verges into noise at times ("Love Music=hate people"); they also do a snazzy cover of "Fight Back." Skverna is blistering grindcore that I find impossible to assess as music. It's blastbeats, blastbeats, and more blastbeats, with an angry, frozen troll howling over the maelstrom. This is not my cup of tea by any stretch of the imagination, but that doesn't say much about it: if you like truly disgusting grindcore played by people who have a right to be as angry as most grindcore bands pretend to be, get this thing, pronto.

In noise we grind.