Magrudergrind
S/T

January 2010
Released: 2009, Candlelight Records
Rating: 3.5/5
Reviewer: Hanntu

It’s that time of year for metal journalists: clearing out the 2009 releases in preparation for the new year and new metal. I got the promo of Magrudergrind’s self-titled early this year from Candlelight, but for some reason (probably because it was grind), it kept getting shoved to the bottom of the review pile. Big mistake. You’d think I would have learnt my lesson from last year, when Phobia’s 22 ACTS OF RANDOM VIOLENCE blew my head off and snuck in to my Top 20 list at the very last second. Magrudergrind doesn’t quite do that this year, but this little gem of grind is pretty fantastic all the same.

Laced with audio samples and quotes – one of which I’m certain comes from the HBO series ‘The Wire’, and another from a 1970s film called ‘Midnight Express’ – mostly politically related, Magrudergrind follows in the time-honoured grindcore tradition of voicing popular displeasure at politicians and politics and policy through the medium of downtuned guitars, blasting drums and throat-wracking screams. The three guys who comprise Magrudergrind hail from Washington, D.C., capital of the USA – do they have loftier concerns that they are trying to express? Or is it a more localised, grassroots, street-level reform that the threesome want to see from the power-players on Capitol Hill?

Whatever it is, the music is furious, angry and fast – that’s all you want from your average crust-driven, political grind – and that’s what Magrudergrind deliver. The short songs groove and mash into one another so that it feels like one long song broken up at intervals with samples and movie quotes. 27 minutes of violence is the best testimony to describe this album.