Five short tracks from the West Midlands based lunatics Accelerated Mutation on their latest review. The three piece of Mike Petalengro (vocals), Tim Connor (guitars) and Simon Heywood (drums) are back with five songs of manic, thrash-based grindcore with something more to say than your average band.
First off, you’re going to get around six-minutes worth of music here, but there’s a lot packed into them. Sure, the basis of the music is the kind of frantic head-mash that’s equal parts early Napalm Death and Nuclear Assault, but it’s stripped back to the bare bones, despite featuring an early Slayer-esque guitar solo at the end of “Ashes”.
Once Again, Mike’s vocals are completely decipherable, and have that unhinged, quality. He actually has interesting things to say, and unlike most grindcore, you can make out what he’s saying. “Ashes” is about understanding how your own learning and reasoning is the antidote to false narratives. “Leach” is about the usual scene-hoppers, buying their look “follow the crowd, follow your leader”, complete with a Celtic Frost-ian breakdown section. Glitch relates to the weird phenomena of liminal spaces, and “glitching” into another existence. Title-track “System” relates to how people are seduced into worshipping abstract ideas like flags, even into hellscapes like war – a theme that carries on into the Suicidal-Tendencies-like “Unhinged”.
Them, it’s all over. Dazed, you wonder if you’ve just heard what you think you’ve heard. You have – because six minutes later, it’s done it again.
Short, sharp shocker.
(8/10 Chris Davison)
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