You Need to Hear: Antigama

Awesome music, rubbish imagery. If you can’t have both, it’s best to have it that way round.

Lean and spry, wiry and angular as all fuck, Antigama surgically devastate your eardrums with hail upon hail of viciously precise blows.

I can’t quite believe I was oblivious to their idiosyncratic math-grind assault until last week. Now I can’t go a day without feasting on their really rather groovy lightspeed-tom-roll-drenched skronk.

This month these mentalist Poles released their first record for three years, Stop the Chaos.

Roundup: Amebix; Masakari; Bastard Priest; Book of Black Earth; Roots Manuva

One of these men now makes actual swords

It’s been a funny few weeks at MDG Manors with the daily soundtrack veering all over the shop.

I’ve dabbled in grind, death, hardcore, hip-hop and a few things that defy description.

I’ve found some real gold in the past week or so, so read on for some tips for sonic satisfaction.

Nails – Unsilent Death

Nails - Unsilent Death

I’m still not quite sure what to make of this odd little debut from SoCal band Nails. The 10 songs of Unsilent Death flash by in 13 minutes 48 seconds – in your face Slayer and Napalm Death!

Indeed the instant velocity achieved by 32-second opener Conform recalls Scum-era Napalm Death and surely track titles like Scum Will Rise and Suffering Soul are nods to that seminal slab of grind.

Unsilent Death is not grindcore, although there are moments that certainly come close.

As these feedback-linked songs unfold, there are moments of brief respite where Nails simply groove.