Tag Archives: II

Like Rats – II

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Like Rats II album cover ghostcultmag

Hailing from Chicago, Like Rats have come to utterly punish you into dust with their new LP. II (Southern Lord Records) could very well be one of the most crushing Death Metal releases in the past few years. Rather than the expected constant blast beasts and speeding riffs, they slowed it down to a rather mid-paced tempo. Essentially capturing what you could consider to be the soundtrack of punching someone in the face. II is an album that I found myself strumming my air guitar along to the constant pulverizing riffs multiple times. II definitely feels inspired by the earlier days of Death Metal. Early Celtic Frost being the shining example that comes to mind when looking for a comparison. You would expect no less for a band that shares members with Weekend Nachos.

Coming in around thirty-four minutes in length, II is a rather straight-forward album. As I mentioned, II is a mid-paced album that doesn’t slow down and rarely speeds up. You could say they played it safe with this release. There are no moments that will blow you away as to how they performed such a complicated riff and/or drum fill. I beg of you to not take it the wrong way as this is no complaint. After a few listens, I found this album to be rather enjoyable. Like Rats wasn’t aiming to be unique but they definitely recorded some refreshing death metal. In fact I feel it’s an album many may enjoy regardless where you elitist opinions lay. It’s a promising release for an up and coming band and I look forward to future material. 

Like Rats has created a bruising sound that they can build on and branch out. Keep your attention on this group.

 

7.0/10

DEREK RIX

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Magrudergrind – II

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Magrudergrind - II - Album cover 2016

After a handful of years away from the studio, Magrudergrind has returned with their heart-racing album, II (Relapse). For twenty-three and a half minutes, the grindcore outfit will punch you in the stomach, throw you to the ground, and then help you back up for more. I personally did not have a large sample size of the bred in Washington D.C., now in Brooklyn, NY trio prior to listening to this album, but this album has put me on a quest to find more. A perfect mix of grindcore and power violence kept me interested from start to finish with no real breaks in the action.

I always find it a bit difficult to pick out favorite songs on an album where most of the tracks are less than two minutes (not saying that is a bad thing either). One of those songs is actually just shy of three and a half minutes, ‘Black Banner.’ As one of the few points in the albums where things slow down and get heavy, this abnormally long track from Magrudergrind will have you violently head bang and then two-step all over your living room. Speaking of long songs, the other longer than typical track on the album is ‘Unit 731.’ This song starts off with that slow, heavy feel again but eventually snaps into a more traditional grindcore song. The song certainly felt like it had multiple personalities with these two sides to make up one of the more memorable tracks on II.

I was very impressed with this latest effort from Magrudergrind and probably in part that it took quite a few years to get some new material. Yet, it sounds like not a single step was lost from the group.

7.0/10

TIM LEDIN

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