The Pitch: Technical, blackened deathgrind from New York's Blurring (Ft. Brutal Truth’s Dan Lilker & Erik Burke) FFO: Gridlink, Dendritic Arbor, Seputus
What I Like: "I will f#$king bash you in the face!" And so the album abruptly opens. There's no "if" or "because" here; only a clear declaration of intent. In the end, the why ends up being unimportant as these 8 words perfectly sum up everything that is to come. Blurring promise to bash in your face, and thusly they make good on said promise. And it turns out that these these hardened New Yorkers are quite good at delivering such clout upon thine unexpecting visage. Through a mangled, disharmonic array of dissonant guitarwork, nosebleed-inducing pace changes, and blackened snarling; one can expect nothing less than to walk away with a few new orifices. Orifici? Whatever. You will hurt.
Critiques: For all of its berating viciousness (something I'm all for when it comes to extreme music), it comes across at times as more of a mangled mess than some of the peers I have named above. Truly pulling off a notable grind album with this approach, at least in my opinion, requires a little bit more order to the chaos. Here the tracks run together a bit and lack effective punctuation. But at only 16 minutes, it can still be enjoyed in a concentrated dose.
The Verdict: If you are looking for an alternative to performing a swan dive into a meat grinder, Cloud Burner is most certainly the album for you. However, if you tend to (like me) overly critique songwriting structure in your grindcore, you might have a handful of misgivings. Either way, with the short time investment there is little reason not to check this one out for yourself.
Flight's Fav's: Flame From Form, Cloud Burner