Cover songs in the Powerviolence/Grindcore circuit have almost become routine amongst bands, a tipping of the proverbial hat to bands past and present, who have been heuristic in said bands projection, and often a symbolic homage to what is a significant personal meaning to the band members musical upbringing. These cover songs add a nice flare to the character of a band and often serve well to break conventionality as we become all to familiar and absorbed into a bands niche and finer points. Traditionally bands tend to cover what we may call the "classics" of their operative genre, there is no shortage of Napalm Death, Repulsion, Infest etc covers out there (with a disappointing number of powerviolence bands nowadays being nothing shy of blatant Infest imitation), and in-spite of its commonality I find it highly absorbing and entertaining to see another band take the reins on such iconic songs. Yet every once in a while I find that a cover band may infact present a far better version of the song than its original masters, by the law of averages alone it is bound to occur, yet we often find ourselves in the falsehood and personal bias that older/ originals are better, a conditioning from our childhoods and society that has osmosed into our musical mindset.
So in this mini series I would like to showcase particular tracks that personally trump the originals, I had intended only to do this as a one off post thing, but from memory alone in the space of 2 minutes I managed to come up with at least 8 personal favourite examples , plus as ever the readership input is not only highly valued, but highly informative too, so I thought divide this mini series into at least 3 parts and with your help see how far we go from there.
FISTS OF FURY
I think it only fitting that the song that inspired me to this miniseries be the first entrant on the list, the song in question being the cryptic allure of Individualised Floor Puncher, penned by the legendary straight edge Powerviolence -Youth Crew merger Charles Bronson and redone by the UK's very own Powerviolence storm Gets Worse. Although highly energetic and memorable, alas the original suffered from an irritable intro and a restless high pitch rattle, cutting these annoyances out and substituting them with their very own distinct groove makes Gets Worse's rendition that much more desirable and substantially more memorable.
CONFOUNDED
My love of blast beat addicts Assuck is rarely matched, yet I am spoilt rotten that one of the few active bands I hold in equal if not higher esteem have paid a most wonderful homage to their misanthropic mastermind track A World of Confusion. I am all to familiar with Assuck to the point of an obsessive disorder, being able to recite the entirety of Misery Index in my mind with synchronised precision, or so I believe. Where the original World of Confusion is a visceral kick of grind wholesomeness, trademarked with the inherent Assuck bleakness and Anticapital fuzz, Suffering Mind re-texture the track to their own modus operandi, the end result be nothing short of one of my favourite homages in grind history.
(Since I have no way to rip vinyl, the Suffering Mind track is a quite a low quality recording from vinyl player via laptop microphone, all the links seemed to be dead when I searched for better rips, hopefully though the brilliancy will shine through)
Regurgitation of Gore
Goregrind isn't really my choice of sonic punishment, with the number of good bands being too few and far between to merit the genre as a "like"; in my books. Goregrind 99 times out of 100 is an umbrella genre for piss poor grind acts, death metal acts with some psycho-sexual issues and generally a presentation of questionable music/fetishes that I would rather not touch with a barge pole. However as aforementioned there are numerous exceptions to the rule, the most prominent being the gore-fathers themselves Carcass incarnation 1.0 (gore acts take note, intellectualism > fetishism): Reeks of Putrefaction, Symphonies of Sickness & Necroticism - Descanting The Insalubrious all being pivotal and highly ingenious grind albums. It may come as a surprise that in fact the band who I deem to have beaten Carcass at their own game and tracks in fact not a gore band at all, but instead one of the most progressive and invigorating grind bands out there. I talk of course of Pig Destroyer, and their welded cover of both the infamous Genital Grinder and the down right sleaze infested Regurgitation of Giblets. Both tracks appeared in the Carcass Tribute Release Requiems of Revulsion and ultimately showcase the immense prowess Pig Destroyer have, even when outside their comfort zone.
Once again feel free to make your own suggestions!
