It’s Monday and Mondays suck, so let’s grind it out with Neon Hiss Shame.
I have been absent the last few weeks, but hey, life takes over. Studying for some new cyber certifications. Very exciting stuff. But the cyber portion ties in here because we are back to the cybergrind of things. Though things are cooling off, looking at some single digits coming up pretty shortly where I am, the cybergrind remains hot.
Neon Hiss has been featured in this column a few times already but if you are unfamiliar here’s what you have missed: a cybergrind project from the mind of A.C. (also: Holy Grinder and Deprivation Tactics). Each album has a different vocalist. There are four EPs leading up to this titled Volume [insert number here]. This release features Chop Chop Chop Chop Chop Chop Chop (or Chop7x) on vocals as well as Melody Jane of Thotcrime on synth for the track “Lurching”. Let’s enumerate this beast.
Listeners of this project know exactly what they are in for. “Outside the Beehive” opens with chaos. I have said it before, and I will repeat it because it bears such: the guitars are very Frontierer. It is djenty but not tuned down to the depths of the Mariana Trench. And it is also not djent, but it evokes the feeling. The execution is grind, full-stop. But there’s more to it than the computer-wire wave of the strings. The drums remain programmed at times sound metallic. Tracks like “Superspreader”, with all of its finger-tapping, drive home that digital feel.
Chop7x’s vocals were a great selection for this. As a person that already screams into the digital cyberviolence void, Chop7x sounds very at home on this release. At times the performance even evokes comparisons to The Locust. The reason for this, I believe, is that cybergrind has the advantage of being very wild west. Keeping it digital or sounding digital is where it is at. Throughout the record Chop7x keeps the intensity, ranging on topics from toxic people, to disappointment, unfamiliarity, mortality, and more. But if one needs a check-in with the title it is… Shame.
Neon Hiss as a project might seem a little more straightforward than other projects but there is a lot to unpack. It is like Psyopus meets Frontierer and they become a cybergrind band. Plenty of finger-tapping, heavy riffs, blasts, and noise. Look, I know Cyber Monday was last week but this week is Cybergrind Monday. And that is way better. So, go on and get grinding on this!
