If you’re a grind fan and haven’t hear of Squash Bowels well then… what the hell is wrong with you?!? The Poles have been blasting away since 1994, with a ton of splits and EPs and now Grindcoholism, their 6^th full-length album. Despite their longevity, these guys haven’t quite reached the top tier of the genre with the likes of Rotten Sound or Napalm Death, but it’s close.

Wasting no time in starting the lashings, this album comes out swinging with opener “Tastelessness”. You have a nice Rotten Sound-ish buzz to the guitars, and a killer growl/yell courtesy of frontman Artur Grassmann. He also handles the bass, which is quite impressive in a genre that requires so much energy expenditure of its vocalists. The fourth track “Surrender”, and longest at 3:32, starts out with a hefty lurching groove before stirring the grind party to a frenzy at the 1:15 mark.

Follow up track “The Second…” is a blast fest designed to do nothing but incite violence, and “Inclinations To…” sees drummer Mariusz Miernik show off some wicked double bass skills. Andrzej Pakos churns out the riffs and nasty buzz-saw chords through the whole show, with it all coming together in a wonderful mix of the grind we all know and love.

With 14 tracks and most averaging in the 1:30-2:30 timeframe, it’s kind of nice to see a band spend a little more time on songwriting instead of making 63 tracks all around the 30 second mark. The whole album is a little over a half hour, and with the various tempo changes and vocal variations it never seems too long. Also have to give props for a very inventive album title, as it beats the hell out of the cop out move of putting out a “self-titled” album when bands can’t think of anything creative.

[Visit the band's website]

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