From its humble beginnings as a feral, misshapen offshoot of hardcore punk and the formative death metal sound back in the mid 80’s, grindcore has proven itself to be a highly durable and surprisingly diverse genre. Here in 2012, we’re practically spoilt for choice with all manner of weird and wonderful bands falling under the grind banner, but despite this veritable smörgåsbord of twisted heads that have grown out of the grindcore hydra, there are still those occasions where you’ll find yourself with an itch that only that pure, old-school sound can scratch. If you’ve found yourself itching like crazy recently, then Violent Restitution’s debut full-length could be just what the doctor ordered…
The record’s noise intro slowly creeps in, with frontwoman Mya bellowing gruff exclamations over the top, making the whole thing seem like Bastard Noise’s crustier little cousin. It’s a pretty tense way to start the record, before ‘Liberate’s crushing groove ushers in the next 15 minutes of grinding fury. And once these guys have warmed up, they go off like a nail bomb in a nuclear research facility. Guitarist Sarah belts out riff after riff of heads-down, fists in the air grind goodness and drummer Pierre absolutely annihilates his kit, blasting away with a deliciously crisp snare sound. ‘Evisceration’ is a short, sharp shock to the system and ‘Burning Rage Of A Dying World’ will tear your face clean off if you’re not careful.
If anything, Side B is even more gnarly than the first – ‘Murderous Colonist Assimilators’ doesn’t mess about at all, charging straight out of the gates with a generous portion of venom, and ‘Acculturation’ is nasty slab of outright speed with some pant-shittingly gruesome vocals towards the end. The frantic blur-core of ‘Not In Our Hood You Racist Scumfuck’ erupts into a righteously pissed off d-beat rampage, and when the record ends, it collapses into sinister waves of white noise, the eerie sound of buildings crumbling and machinery failing worldwide due to the fallout of the colossal grind explosion these three individuals have just unleashed.
The Insect Warfare influence here is obvious, and manifests itself in a number of different ways; from the band’s name (I’m presuming this is a homage to Insect Warfare’s second EP, which in turn was a tribute to under-rated Canadian thrashers Razor’s album of the same name) and the record’s World Extermination-esque artwork, right down to ‘Patriarchal Regime’ borrowing heavily from IW’s ‘Enslaved By Machinery’ (almost to the point of being a straight cover), you can tell this trio are huge fans of the Texan legends. That’s not to say the band is identical, as Mya’s occasional higher, more feminine sounding shrieks lend the band a slightly different identity, but this trio are definitely part of a recognisable lineage that runs throughout extreme music’s history, and one surely can’t begrudge a young band for trying to emulate their heroes (and often succeeding).
Violent Restitution’s faithful Insect Warfare worship may not be reinventing the wheel, but when it sounds this good it hardly matters. Plus, with that band sadly defunct, it’s good to see these girls and a guy willing to pick up the torch. This is an extremely solid album, and I can see no reason why any grindcore aficionado worth their salt would fail to go totally apeshit for this. If the band continues on like this, they’re going to make a lot of jaded blastbeat junkies very happy indeed…
