The Bad, The Intelligent and The Strange

Warning: the following post will alternate between 3 different genre abbreviations (PV - powerviolence) (SG - Scene Grind) (MC - Mathcore) however this does not mean that these bands are one of those things, it's so it's easier than having a million different genre listings and having an internet shitstorm like we did last year when we called Trash Talk "powerviolence esq" and everyone went apeshit. Thank you for your co-operation.

There's something that's ingrained in every human being, and that's a love for something "strange" from being barefoot in wet grass to dressing up as babies for sexual pleasure, It's human nature to have a soft spot for something out of the ordinary regardless of how tame or extreme it is. I've always had an affinity with strange things, be it strange people (not in the HAHAH I'M SO KOOKY SENSE) strange films (autumn underground anyone) or strange concepts (HIV was designed to kill the extraterrestials in the african mountains) but there is nothing I love more when strange things come together and make strange music, and this gave birth to one of the genres of music that will always have a special place in my heart, MATHCORE/SCENE GRIND/PSEUDO POWERVIOLENCE/FAST THINGS WHATEVER.

For the unaware/uninterested MCPVSG is essentially the by product of two things, hardcore and math music, so in it's essence is strange time signatures, sporadic bursts of experimental music and in most cases lyrical strangeness, think the the love child between napalm death, dj tiesto and phil collins and you'd be around the right place. it's music for intelligent weirdos or stupid weirdos. I fall somewhere in between that catergory as "weirdo who thinks he is smarter than he is" but social and intelligent preferences aside, join me as I take you through a brief (and inevitably factually incorrect) trip through MATHCORE! all aboardt the steambolt (i promise that joke will come apparent in about 5 paragraphs time)

Let's Do The Time Warp

I have no real idea of when grindcore or powerviolence started or who created it or who is a true grind band and who is just playing super fast metal or whatever, and there's a lot of bands that I know I should give recognition to especially all the first wave PV bands like Rosarch, Charles Bronson, Dropdead and Infest,lot of the screamo pioneers like Orchid and Anitoch Arrow etc and bands who got the early Mathcore label like Converge, Botch, Coalsce. It's probably a lot of people's first band they come across or think of when you think of MC/PV but The Locust were the first band I came across when looking at videos of hellfest, and the entire thing was just so bizarre to me I had to watch it around 3 times to understand what I was even hearing/seeing (4 art school people playing crazy music in bug suits was my immediate reaction)

From that point on I was hooked and ended up spending a lot of my youth listening to The Locust and some of their side projects like Some Girls and Swing Kids and when the original drummer joined Cattle Decapitation the almost full circle between metal and hardcore was complete for me. I had no idea what it was but I liked it, and that lead me onto discover what can be described as one of the perfect cases of "weirdos" playing music, the notorious Anal Cunt who after being shown to me as a joke at a party I decided to have a listen to and although probably are more a PV band more than anything, proved to me that you don't have to a guitar wizard to make a band and that if you have a sense of humour it can take you pretty much anywhere and if there was band who thrived off being weirdos and upsetting people for their own amusement, it was easily AxC

There's not really much I can say about this as it was all these bands broke up way before I could get into them, but I think this is a testament to the sort of thing that originally sparked my interest in this super odd genre of music.

Hey Bro Hold My Plugs Whilst I Mosh

Whilst my interest in "heavy music" was starting to peak and grow, a little thing called myspace suddenly popped up into millions of young teenagers lives and within seconds you could be interconnected with thousands of aspiring bands and millions of other goofy teenagers across the globe. This small online phenomena teamed up with the discovery of limewire pretty much revealed to me what I would now consider the golden age of "Scene Grind" or "Mathcore V2" and also revealed to me that it was sort of a growing trend to move away from deathcore, put on a massively tight shirt, illegally download reason and get a microphone and put it in your laptop and start a super fast metal/grind band and in some cases intentionally bizarre/awful bands like preschool teaparty massacre. To grasp this concept better, here is 3 examples of what could be described as the 3 main pools of these bands: the good, the bad and the strange.

The Good:

towers of rome were a 3 piece band who are still jam on a regular basis and only put out two records, but to me along with the amazing Graf Orlock as a band who effectively used both super fast technical wizardy with surprisingly poetic and humourous/insightful lyrics.

Heavy Heavy Low Low are to me what scenegrind was all about; long crazy fringes, intentionally bizarre lyrics and breaking music down to it's core components then messing it all up so your just presented with a highly listenable mishmash. Regardless of HHLL's representation as jerks, the albums they released before they disappeared into the of new decade were to me, highly rated.

myspace was a weird place, and was full of myspace hype mystery guy grind bands like wecamewithbrokenteeth who although were pretty awful in retrospect at the time were massively popular for just being them and I still have this on my ipod just to play from time to time and remind me of the time i started a paypal just to buy one of their shirts.

The Bad:

if anyone remembers dowloading music on limewire, you'd always see this band on the top search for metal and inevitably you'd download it and realise that they weren't exactly great. I was never sure if it was an intentional joke or if they were just a band who were dedicated to making as much music as possible, but regardless i'm happy this is gone to the sands of time.

there is nothing I can say to justify this or to even understand why it's on my ipod. sorry mum.

somehow this band has become popular now, almost 6 years after it came out, is this proof that we as europeans are completely behind?

The Strange

This band was absolutely huge on myspace and even played warped tour one year which for a 2 piece band that sort of weren't really anything but also a lot of things is pretty good, have to give them props for that. Classic formula from pre 2008 of screaming, breakdown, weird bit, breakdown

Genghis Tron are still pretty top rated even now because they essentially made these crazy albums that would either be insanely long, or insanely short (sort of a grindy mars volta) but would never seem to compromise on quality or make that final push into the big time. The video of above is them playing "Ride the steambolt" (geddit now?!?) at SXSW fest which is a perfect example of how music can be interpreted as art and then you can get a slot at the most hipster riddled festival on earth.

 

sawtoothgrin were one millions of bands who despite being actually quite good, never made it into the big time and were left to sort of wait around and then breakup quietly without fanfare. More musically and lyrically adept than some of their peers, they just never made it and were left to one side.

Here And Now

And we now come crashing into present day, at the sort of the end of the 00's the whole myspace/scenekid thing was sort of dying but also wasn't but most of them had moved onto either becoming dubstep dj's or getting behind that awful crunkcore thing that was popular for a bit before thankfully dying a death. That however didn't mean that the quality of bands playing weird arty spazzy music declined and in the last 4 years some of the most notable bands came out of our fair island of England including: cutting pink with knives, throats, maths, rolo tomassi, trencher, run! walk! Battle For Paris and numerous other bands across the pond who kept the sort of grind/math thing alive to this present day.

  

RIP one of the funkiest and maddest bands I ever had the pleasure of listening to. 

Rolo tomassi are sort of in a weird place now with their music which proves that sometimes it's better to burn out quickly than fade away but hysterics will always be a defining album for me, altogether now DER NER NER NER NER NER

Over the pond, american bands like IWABO were doing something similar and also went a bit floppy after a while, their EP though was top drawer and a great example of the sort of weirdness that being 16 was for me.

my favorite grindy/pv band as of the moment, Weekend Nachos combine both the intelligent yet hatefilled lyrics of earlier bands like Charles Bronson with the up to date speedy guitar and wall of noise work that bands like Towers Of Rome had.

This Is Goodbye

So there you have it, a brief, potted, mangled and confusing walk through one of their oddest genres of music on earth. Was I making it all up? have I missed the point completely about what this genre is? did i just write an entire essay about grind bands and not what mathcore is? Am I wrong? Am I a moron? Is it powerviolence? is it metal? is it commericalised? is it for people in turtlenecks? is it art? is it stupid? all these questions you can decide for yourself, all I know is that this genre was made for the weirdos, and was made by weirdos and will always be for the weirdos, be it fast or slow or just completely irrelevant, once listened to never forgot.

shout outs (the list of bands I didn't mention who deserve a mention and will keep everyone happy)

USA: Charles Bronson, Rosarch, Infest, Dropdead, The Irish Front, HHLL, Towers Of Rome, Graf Orlock, Hewhocorrupts, The Locust, Swing Kids, Orchid, Anitoch Arrow, Anal Cunt, Deadguy. Neanderthal, Poison Planet, Behold The Arctopus, Robinson, Sawtooth Grin, Great Redneck Hope, Ed Gein, Weekend Nachos, Botch, Converge, Coalsce, Scholastic Deth, full of hell, from a second story window

UK: Battle For Paris, Maths, Rolo Tomassi, Let It Die, Throats, Cutting Pink With Knives, RUN/WALK, trencher, iced out, birds in a row