Magrudergrind - Crusher

US grind trio Magrudergrind are somewhat of an enigma amongst grindcore bands. They've been going as a band since 2002 and have played around the world, with some of the globes best extreme metal bands. Crusher was released as a 10" EP by To Live A Lie Records in February of this year.

Tracklist:-

1. Leech
2. Conditioned Minds
3. Incapacity Reigns
4. Stagnant
5. Heaviest Bombing
6. Cognition

Opener Leeches starts with ringing feedback and crazed drums, as Magrudergrind’s quick fire grind takes hold of your senses. The music itself is full of razor riffing and warp-speed drumming, with the vocals being a mixture of high and low pitched screams and occasional growls.

Conditioned Minds is the only sub one-minute song on Crusher. It's utterly metal yet its structure is more traditional. The slower riffs in the middle of the song break it down slightly and allow the band to rest a little before the final blast.

With Incapacity Reigns, you've got a song that will cause mayhem in the pit. The riffs have a hardcore influence to them and there's a good variation to Magrudergrind's staple sound here. The song is still over far too fast though, but then you would never have a 10-minute grind song would you!

By Stagnant, you're already halfway through this EP. It's another short blast of hardcore inspired grind, with some vocals that remind me of Slayer. There are some semi-melodic riffs at play here, but they are off-kilter so sound nuts.

By the time you reach Heaviest Bombing, you've already witnessed a carpet-bombing of utter filthy grind and then your confronted with a surprise. Towards the end of the song, a hip-hop passage comes in and plays out the rest of the song. A nice left field touch to an otherwise insane song.

Cognition is Magrudergrind's experimental effort at over five minutes in length. The riffs take their cur from sludge and angry, Integrity style hardcore and sound absolutely meaty. This song proves that the band are able to switch their sound and have the skill to slow things down, and keep listeners guessing. I'm going to stick my neck out here and say this is my favourite track on Crusher. The lead guitar work is brilliant and when it's played over the top of the sludgy rhythm section, it just sounds epic.

You can listen to the whole of this EP via To Live A Lie's Bandcamp page below - 

You can also download it for free from the same page.

If you'd rather a physical copy though, head over to http://tolivealie.com/webstore. It's currently down, but it does tell you were you can pick vinyl copies up from.

Also, Magrudergrind are on Facebook at http://www.facebook.com/MagrudergrindOfficial.