Grin and Bear It / Musket Hawk / Sidetracked / Ugly split LP
This is a four-way split LP of grindcore punk rock. I don’t mean mincing splatter grind, or trigger-heavy technical grind. Classic thrashing grind, the best kind. I have a few four-way splits and they seemed mostly popular coming from Japan in the ’80s and ’90s. Anyway, this compilation of sorts starts off with MUSKET HAWK (Baltimore)—think GRAVES AT SEA meets POPULATION ZERO. Grinding crust. GRIN AND BEAR IT (Cleveland) plays psychotic grind leaning into powerviolence like DISCORDANCE AXIS meets CHEPANG. SIDETRACKED (Tacoma)—holy shit, this band has extensive releases. I know I was sent their tape Dweller for review. These tracks continue with halting, wild earhole abuse like AGORAPHOBIC NOSEBLEED or CHARLES BRONSON, totally frenzied but denser and tighter than both. UGLY (Prescott) rounds out this day at the beach with echoing gloom-core similar to EYEHATEGOD, DYSTOPIA, or INITIAL STATE, but more to the rhythm of a metropolitan area collapsing. You’re getting a lot of grind/hardcore/PV bang with this well-rounded comp/split. We need more of these, again!