DEMONOTHER „s/t”

Music: Grindcore
Website: www.demonother.live.com.au
Duration: 19.07 (12 songs)
Cool songs: Wannabe, Navigate The Psycho, Hate Rising, Shut the Fuck Up

With its iridescent green logo jumping out at you in contrast to its black background, new Aussie grindcore act ‘Demonother’ make a particularly stark initial impression. For me, the album cover emanates some sort of otherworldly vibe and fortunately the bands music, whilst not quite of another planet, is suitably deranged. The grind kids are going to love this shit.

I don’t know much about Demonother, suffice to say that this 12 track, 19-minute affair is their debut album and acts as a follow up to a locally released demo in 2003. Although they are a new band, Demonother do have some metal pedigree in their line up. Local Melbourne metal fans will recognize guitarist Adrian and vocalist Kerian from their late 90’s metal outfit ‘Fallout’. Demonother also features drummer Danny (formerly of Magnacite and Nation of Hate) and current Mindsnare (Melbourne’s best known Hardcore act) bass player Nigel. Apparently Demonother began as a side project, but is now a full time commitment (depending on Nigel’s Mindsnare obligations no doubt).

In describing Demonother as a grindcore band, well the title is probably a tad limiting as there are moments of pure hardcore and metal elements embedded within their song structures. However there can be no question that the ‘grind’ aspect is a major feature in this bands blueprint.

The most confronting aspect about Demonother’s sound is the ultra brutal production achieved on this discs. Mastered by Martin Pulan (@Edensound) and mixed by Luke Kenny (@ Nashland), Demonother is an extremely ugly sounding album. The guitars and bass lines are exceedingly thick and sludgy, enabling a massively heavy bottom end to blast the listener’s brains into their back wall. The pacing is varied only through short mid tempo sections that do little more than set up the ‘grind-blasting’ that forms the redline of each track written here. Think Brutal Truth meets Terrorizer for immediate comparisons. Furthermore, the Kevin Sharp-like vocal rasping of Kieran gives rise to an even more confronting grind element. Fans of Brutal Truth will be impressed with the Kieran’s psychotic vocal ramblings that give Demonother’s music a bit more distinctiveness and over the top viciousness. As for the lyrical stance of this band, the inlay card makes for a truly difficult read – not that their subject matter is anything obscene, but mainly because each song lyric is featured back to back without punctuation. The lyrics also refuse to follow song order making the whole thing even more difficult to track.

All up, Demonother represents as one of Australia’s more authentic grindcore acts. By definition, their style is nothing groundbreaking but it is true that the brutality and immense ferocity with which these guys play needs to be commended. The only real problem I have is that it’s all over pretty quickly – hopefully, the way-too-short length of this self-titled album is something will address on the next DO installment. I’m sure it’ll slay.

note: 7.5/10

Tracklist

1. Every Generation Swallows
2. Wannabe
3. Absent Father
4. Blood Red
5. Navigate the Psycho
6. Keep on Raping in the Free World
7. Hate Rising
8. Hate Campaign
9. Push the Point
10. Here Come the Pain
11.Wonderful Life
12. Shut the Fuck Up