It’s Monday and Mondays suck, so let’s grind it out with Blight Worms I.
Weekends suck too when you work over them. So I’m feeling like something extra pissed and fast today. Sometimes you just gotta turn on something unhinged in order to unwind. And Blight Worms have delivered us a real treat of pure rage.
Blight Worms is a no-nonsense band. The shtick is straight forward: chaotic, noisy, powerviolence-infused grind played viciously. I was released in September of 2016 and unfortunately, I only heard it a month ago. But better late than never.
The three-piece hails out of Canberra, Australia. And if you know Australia, you know that they have no shortage of great underground bands, including the mighty Extortion, Agents of Abhorrence, Rupture, Birdflesh, etc. Blight Worms is no different. The band already has three releases to their name, two of which are splits. Hell, the Slave Birth split tape came out less than a month ago. So far there’s no sign of slowing down.
But let’s just take Blight Worms on its first release merit. I comes in with “Change”, banging and thrashing like a locomotive. However, there’s something instantly familiar about this. The speed, those blasts, the vocals…it sounds like Blight Worms might have been sampling ACxDC (that’s Antichrist Demoncore if you’ve missed out on that band) with heavier doses of grind. Like a less technical Discordance Axis.
It works though. Blight Worms deliver like you’re being beaten over the head with a bag of quarters. Songs are disjointed, angry and blast constantly. “Gentrification” is the second song that moves things in a purer grind direction. The track begins with a blast beat, keeping up the momentum from the previous song, before moving into a punkier slam. And it still breaks things down like a ton of bricks.
I doesn’t have any truly pure tracks though, but it comes damn close. The powerviolence/grindcore fusion isn’t something they stray from for a whole song. And it ain’t a bad thing. I will give blisters as much as it will break bones. Songs like “Hope” remain more on the grind side but still get punky/powerviolence-y. Meanwhile, “Dying Inside” sounds like it’s trying to break a sound barrier. Blight Worms play a good balancing act, but hang more on the punk-y grinding side.
I is eight songs in seven-minutes but nothing is ever overdone. It just moves really, really fast. And frankly, if you wanna get the most out of this album, I recommend blasting it on repeat. Keep listening and keep raging. I is a preview of things to come (and I’m talking further than Feb. 2017), and the future is looking blight. Er, bright. … Either or I suppose.
I'm here.
