Mandible Klaw Mankind Grind LP
These guys hail from way up in Calgary, Canada and to be honest, with the winters they get up there I’d expect something more genuinely aggressive-sounding to come outta the place, but MANDIBLE KLAW don’t deliver us that. Instead, we get thirteen tracks of ultra-clean crossover thrash in the usual party tradition, complete with a nod to the Home Improvement theme song. It reminds me of a million other bands from a period not so long ago in the mid-2000s; its speed never quite reaches a level to be impressive, and the pissed-off vocals just sound inauthentic. Call me cynical all you want, but this sounds like a record that I’ve already heard a thousand times before—and after a year with more than enough to be fucking livid with, I’m after something actually pissed-off.