This lot is serious, dead serious. It might just be an impression, but I feel that fewer bands sing about animal rights and the horror of slaughterhouses these days, while the topic was very popular back in the ’90s and ’00s. It sounds a little paradoxical, since more and more people these days question the meat industry and challenge conventional diets by going vegetarian or vegan, or calling their parents cruel murderers at dinner. The growing presence of the issue in the mainstream may have impacted its prevalence in traditional punk discourses: since it is in the mainstream, why bother dealing with it in our lyrics? Or is it just taken for granted nowadays, whereas it was still something of an oddity a few decades ago? Do punks still even care? I would think so—after all, vegan food is highly Instagrammable, which seems to matter a lot. But MASS EXTINCTION still cares about this important topic. A lot. These two brothers (they use a drum machine) are rightfully angry at all the abuse animals suffer at the hands of humankind, and to protest this systemic oppression, the band chose the most furious style there is in the punk universe: gruff, dual-vocal grinding crustcore. The sonic and political tradition that MASS EXTINCTION belongs to is old and obvious, namely EXTREME NOISE TERROR and DISRUPT, but with a significant grindcore influence, pretty much like a militant vegan version of MASSGRAVE. Beside the very apt songwriting, the anger and outrage on this recording are genuine, and that’s what makes it work so well. The band even manages to make you forget that they use a drum machine. Never Ending Holocaust was first released on tape in 2020, but it was just too good not to enjoy a vinyl release.
