The Aculeus Review

It has been a long time coming, but you are now reading The Aculeus's 100th post. Today I'm celebrating the festivities by reviewing some of the most classic articles as published here on this very site. I give you, The Aculeus Review.

The Dark Knight Rises Review - 7/30/12

There are all sorts of things going just utterly wrong here. It almost looks as if it's composed in a list format and it makes me wonder if the person who wrote it had ever read another film review in their life. Why the hell does it keep breaking up the text into short thought paragraphs? Also, who the fuck chose these shitty images? Is that a creepy joke implying that Anne Hathaway is hot?

While touching on some important points, this article seems to miss the big picture. It's difficult to get a coherent idea of what the film is actually like due to the way it's constantly interrupting itself. It's just too brief in it's thoughts and it would be improved if the writer had let each point be elaborated rather then just laying the bare minimum.

2/10 - Not bad points, but lacks direction

Moving right along.

Let's Talk About Manga... - 7/29/12

To this day, I'm not sure what the purpose of this article is. The author simply goes about tearing apart this poor DeviantArtist's work as if it were being compared to the Mona Lisa. People make shitty art every day, it's not a crime. I also love the way the author tries to cover it up at the end by giving a bullshit moral like, "If you aren't good, you shouldn't submit!" Who the hell is this guy anyway? What gives him the authority to tell people not to post? Some poor ten year old probably drew this and I'll bet this article broke his heart.

3/10 - Funny but seemingly useless and overtly mean spirited

Up next...

Gas Powered Toaster Ovens - 10/21/12

Very well stated, touched on a strongly controversial topic, got to the "gut" of the issue and prodded "the real questions".

8.25/10 - Very intriguing

Keep it up.

Prometheus Review - 7/30/12

July 30th was a dark day for online journalism. This review is simply far too short to base any sort of opinion towards the aforementioned film. I like how the author felt the need to say that bullshit at the top in order to excuse the review's pained existence. As if people are going to give a damn, they have to go and make a weird excuse like that.

Oh, and thanks for telling us what other reviewals said about this movie. I mean, it's not like I couldn't already look them up, right? This article doesn't seem to have it's opinion made up about the film at all and the author just sort of circumvents the topic. What an asshole.

4/10 - Waste of time

Last but least...

I Hate This - 7/30/12

What the fuck even is this article? Can this actually be considered journalism? It's just one run-on sentence that states things that everyone already knows. Does that say ">mfw"? Are we trying to greentext on other websites now? I can't deduce much from this work because, well, there's simply not enough substance to talk about. Utter trash. "I Hate This"? Try "I Hate This Article".

0/10 - Takes ten seconds to read, but you could be spending them wiser

All in all, this site sucks, and I'm amazed that anyone still reads it. You're out there somewhere, fans. Thanks for the readers and thanks to the regulars for sticking with me through it. Here's to the next 100.

V/H/S

V/H/S is a horror film that does not follow the conventional plot progression of most films. It's one of those rare anthology horror movies wherein it is comprised of multiple smaller, "short" flicks put into one. It's much in tune with the drive-in sort of feel and reminds me strongly of a modernized Creepshow.

The story goes that a group of deviant, rapscallion twenty-year-olds carry out all sorts of high-profile law-breaking on camera for money. These sort of acts include breaking into a warehouse and destroying everything in sight, or attacking a random woman on the street and pulling her top off. So in short, they're real charmers.

One of the stunts they're tasked with, at the request of an anonymous source, is to break into a specific house to steal a video tape. Upon entry, they find that the only resident is a dead man sitting in front of a TV turned to static, who seems to have had a collection of hundreds of unmarked video tapes. So they start grabbing them all up in order to ensure that they get the right one. While this is happening, one of the criminals stays back to play whatever tape was in the VCR. The rest of the film is just the contents of this tape and a few other subsequent tapes that are inserted afterword.

It's unfortunate to note that the contents of these tapes, that is the selling point, are none too interesting. I found that they were all very much the same, i.e. "something is stalking me/us in the end it kills me".

The first is about some guys who are trying to record an amateur porn with a spy camera that's placed on the glasses of one of the perverts. As it happens one of the chicks turns out to be something other than human and she viciously murders two of them; and I mean fucking viciously, it actually shows her tearing off a dude's dick and balls. Why that's needed at all, I have no idea, it's obviously just in there for shock-value. Anyway, the third guy, who couldn't be worse at running away, makes it all the way outside before the demon-girl-thing sprouts bat-like wings and takes him away... so basically, what the fuck.

Demon-chick before demon-mode.

It's unfortunate that this film seems to stray away from being genuinely creepy; it almost gets there several times. Rather, it's more partial to gross-out gore, which is fine in small doses. Say, for instance, if only one of the tapes contained anything graphic, that'd be effective. Cramming violence into all of them is boring, cliche and not scary at all.

The following tape is worse, not in it's gore-factor, but in it's necessity. It's just about newly married couple on a honeymoon doing normal things. However when they spend the night in a motel, someone wearing a hood breaks in and removes $100 from the guy's wallet, pulls out a switchblade and doesn't do anything with it and scariest of all, throws a toothbrush into the toilet. The next day, the couple does more normal shit and then the following night the hooded person breaks into their motel again, this time stabbing the dude in the throat with the switchblade. Then we see the hooded guy is actually some chick and she starts making out with the woman who's husband just died and then it ends.

So not only is this installment not even remotely scary, it serves no point. Why should I care about the going ons of some couple I know nothing about and am not invested in. Not to mention, it's the only tape without anything supernatural going on, which only furthers the notion that it's simply adding runtime which thusly stands just shy of two fucking hours which is just way too long.

It's almost as if they tried to make them as cliche and predictable as possible and in that they succeeded.

The next clip is nothing short of a Friday the 13th knockoff and is about four teenagers who head out to a remote lake in the woods because one of them goes there every year. Ten seconds into this episode and you'd have to be an idiot to think that any of them are going to survive. But that's not enough foreshadowing already because we then get to hear the girl tell a chilling story about how a bunch of people were killed at this very lake! I mean, it isn't like we've all heard this a million times before, right? Well, as it turns out, there's a killer afoot who is only partially visible and appears to be obscured by glitchy tracking-errors and the girl lured all of her friends here in order to try and kill this guy. She fails, he kills all four of them with ease and eviscerates the girl. Fucking exciting.

There's almost no point in continuing to summarize these, they're not very interesting or very different. It bugs me that they all ended up using the same tired gimmicks over and over again. The found footage genre is clearly on it's last legs and by the end of this film, I was sick of it.

Creepshow remains the time-tested best example of an anthology horror movie. In that film, you get five totally different flicks that play on cliches but just enough so that it's not predictable and it's mixed with inventiveness that you don't see anywhere else. What we have in V/H/S is unvaried sameness that is only made worse by the found footage aspect which, while convincing and well done, serves to make all of the films that much more identical.

I think V/H/S had a lot of potential. If the content of the tapes had been genuinely creepy and mysterious rather than just gory and predictable, it would've made for a much more chilling experience. Don't show us three guys getting killed by a monster, there are literally hundreds of movies where that exact thing happens. Show us something we can't explain, something that leaves us to fill in the blanks; at least, that's how I would make it.

V/H/S was an interesting idea that had terrible execution. It ended up as some awkward cross between The Blair Witch Project and Goosebumps and put the final nail in the coffin of the found-footage revival that's been going ever since the first Paranormal Activity. V/H/S had it's moments, but they were few and far between and not worth it enough to sit through. It's a fine example of how shock-value and jump-out horror only goes so far.

4.5/10 - Could've been much better

Top 10 Albums of 2013

First of all, welcome to 2014!
It seems like just the other day when I was posting Top 10 Albums of 2012. Alas, another year has passed by and it's been a pretty good one for music so let's get started, shall we?

(Note: The albums here can be clicked on to be viewed in higher resolution.)

10. Shpongle - Museum of Consciousness

When it comes to anomalous trippiness, there are few artists who do it better than Shpongle. I would still consider the debut album, Are You Shpongled?, to be his undisputed best work, but Museum of Consciousness may just be the greatest since. This album is markedly brighter and smoother than most of Shpongle's previous works and it has more of a flow to it. This sound is created in part by the heavy implementation of flutes and other woodwind instruments and it makes this whole album very soothing in nature. While the usual gibberish vocals are commonplace here, there is plenty of clearly worded english as well, which is a bit unusual for Shpongle, but it works, just like everything else.

9. October Falls - The Plague of a Coming Age

The Opeth inspired ambient/folk/dark metal band, October Falls released their fourth studio album this year and it doesn't disappoint. Labeling this album as one specific genre would be difficult as it's mood is all over the place. It goes from folk to doom to progressive to black all in 51 beautifully ambient minutes. The usage of clean vocals are reminiscent of mid-period Katatonia while acoustic interludes bring to mind influential bands like Agalloch. The greater number of tracks in this release compared to their other works allow the band more experimentation with dynamics and tempo and it's just another thing that makes The Plague of a Coming Age unique and varied.

8. 8 - Uneven Structure

No, I'm not giving this album the number eight spot just so I can say eight is 8 (the eighth song is titled 8 and it's eight minutes so I can already say eight on 8 is 8 for eight minutes). Uneven Structure has such a strong progressive feel to it and 8, despite being a 25 minute EP, is an amazing work of djent that's deserved of much more recognition than it's currently getting. The Meshuggah inspired group is full of distorted screams and blends polyrhythmic-passages and low bass tunings with heavy layerings and ambience and the result is something you just have to sit back and listen to. 8 is a work that flows from beginning to end and if heard all at once, it can be difficult to guess where each song ends and the next begins. Well worth 25 minutes of your time.

7. In Vain - Ænigma

Norwegian, progressive death/black metal, sextuplet, In Vain released their third full-length album titled Ænigma this year. Equal parts melodic, abrasion and atmosphere; incredibly and surprisingly catchy hooks, brutal riffing and impressively tight tremolos are all amazing features of this work but they are not what make it a standout gem. Rather, the varied vocal working which transitions from core-inspired guttural growls, screams and shrieks that borrow from black metal, hauntingly beautiful clean vocal segments and musically complex more energetic singing and shouts make for an experience that can't help but captivate. The lyrical themes of war, inner-struggles for meaning, loss and questioning the future of humanity only make for an even darker ambience that gives me chills every time I hit replay.

6. Ulver - Messe I.X - VI.X

Experimental is a broad genre that the tenth studio album by Ulver, Messe, could be found under. I'm not sure there are too many albums that quite capture dark and mournful ethereality as Ulver does with this masterpiece. While Ulver is well known for their start in the black metal genre with legendary albums such as Bergtatt still holding a formidable title within the metal community, they have long since strayed from traditional music forms and Messe I.X-VI.X is an elaborately eerie work. With almost no vocals to speak of, all of them clean, Ulver has pulled a serious 180 since their days as black metal in the early and mid 90's. Messe is an atmospheric landscape that simply takes you somewhere else when you're listening to it. As one EM reviewer put it,

"This album is a great example (even for today's cynical and over-experienced standards) of contemporary academic music mixed with the very edges of the Ulver brand, post-industrial ambient."

It's a haunting work that I've found myself playing over and over again. It is stripped of rock and metal elements and remains only the bare and chilling soul. A modern classical masterwork.

5. Aborym - Dirty

Yet another album that I repeatedly find myself replaying over and over again, Dirty by industrial-black metalists, Aborym is just as the title says, quite dirty indeed. It's music that has been referred to as "jaundiced" but in a positive way. It's a sticky and thick sounding work that is plagued with rampant distortions and moments that almost sound like glitches. It's far from anything beautiful, rather it has a filthy luster to it that is sprawling and enticing to the ear. It may not be as unrelenting as some other harder black metal influences, but it's still a great album to play at full blast and it's catchiness makes up for that completely.

4. Deafheaven - Sunbather

Before you accuse me of jumping on the Deafheaven bandwagon, hear me out. Sunbather is probably one of, if not, the first and only black metal album to receive resounding acclaim and to almost be regarded as something close to popular. It has made it's way into to all sorts of praising including NPR's top 50 albums of 2013 (a remarkably unbiased list that's worth checking out, by the way) and rightfully so. Deafheaven have gone beyond the confines of stigma and genre to create a sound that is wholly theirs. It combines traditional and post-black metal elements with contemporary rock sounds and bright, romantic acoustics, interludes and choral progressions. The vocals are screeched and sound authentic and pure and what has generally been regarded as an aberrant and contrast works amazingly well in Sunbather. Deafheaven may very well have created an entirely new genre with this release, time will tell if it can garner a following.

3. Apocynthion - Sidereus Nuncius

For the atmospheric connoisseurs, Sidereus Nuncius is about as airy and ethereal as it gets. Drawing inspiration from other masters of the genre and even naming the group after a track by artist, Nhor, of the same name, Apocynthion is a dramatic post-black metal and post-rock fusion that while maintaining a strongly atmospheric tone manages to sound wholly raw when the metal actually kicks in. I've played this album probably more than a dozen times and I still feel as though there are pieces and meanings buried beneath it that I have yet to uncover. With a low production value, it's amazing that this album sounds as good as it does and if Apocynthion are ever picked up (and I do hope that they are) they could be putting out some seriously game-changing works that appeals to more than just the metal crowd but also branches out to the rock groupies as well. A great album that sounds like the music of nebulae in deep space and has a strongly off-earth feel to it.

2. Thrawsunblat - Wanderer on the Continent of Saplings

In stark contrast to the spacey, anything-but-here vibe that comes from Sidereus Nuncius, Thrawsunblat has a predominantly folk/black metal sound and is about as earthy as it gets. This as-of-yet unsigned Canadian trio has folk down pat but also manages to remain effectively melodic in nature. With songs such as Once Fireveined fleshing out the band's variability and utilizing both screams and clean vocals reminiscent of bands like Windir; others such as Maritime Shores that showcase the band's affluence with true, unbridled folk music, serving as a great break from the heavier material and also managing to be distinguished and not simply filler; and finally to heavier tracks like Borea that are unrelenting and almost thrashy; Thrawsunblat sounds very authentic and undistorted which perfectly accentuates the natural focus of the album. A captivating work and one of my favorite folk metal pieces.

1. Nhor - Within the Darkness Between the Starlight

In all of my purest honesty, my words cannot effectively describe this masterpiece of an album. It is dark and emotional, eerie and atmospheric, earthy and ethereal. This one man project, who is referred to only as Nhor, is as beautifully vibrant as it is devastatingly mournful. It seamlessly flows from soft, sorrowful scintillating piano pieces into anguished and echoed black metal passages. It's a patient work but requires your full attention the entire time. It's a very unpredictable album that's shrouded in a somber haze and the music feels distant as if it were a memory.
Tracks like the title song, along with it's intro piece, are intensely melancholy; their slow pace allowing for introspection and imagery to work their ways into the mind. After having listened to the intro track, A Forest Draped In Moonlight, hearing next song kick in with Nhor's reverberating screams is among the most chilling experiences I've ever had with metal. The following tracks are just as essential and the album keeps pace with itself, never losing that darkened tone or rushing itself. Piano interludes abound, the longest being on The Temple of Growth And Glimmer Ascends. Never do these seem boring or like filler; they set up the melody and give contrasting accent to the harsher parts making them all the more effective. It is in this way that Nhor has the incredible ability to utilize the silence as if it were an instrument of it's own and it's a beautifully somber work because of it.
That's what this work does so masterfully; it paints such vivid images into my mind. When I close my eyes, I can see the pinpricks of light in the velvet black of night, taste the faint bite of winter and feel the longing nostalgic breezes. It's comparable to stepping out of reality and into a dream. I cannot understate this album. From beginning to end, it utterly captivates me and I find myself so deeply enveloped in it's spell that any outside rousing seems jarring to me. There is no point that is any weaker than the last. It's poetry in a non-verbal form.

Honorable Mention

Imperium Dekadenz - Meadows of Nostalgia

October Tide - Tunnel of No Light

Impending Doom - Death Will Reign

Means End - The Didact

Entities - Aether

I would also like to point out that had I made the 2012 list now, it would look a bit different. Most notably Ashen Eidolon by Gallowbraid would be in the top slot as the best album of that year. It's amazing and you should check it out.

The Hobbit: The Desolation of Smaug

I gave The Hobbit: An Unexpected Journey a fairly disparaging review this time last year. Most notably, I griped over it's excessive usage of CG (in stark contrast to the Lord of the Rings trilogy) and it's goofy, kid-friendliness. Despite this, I maintained an expectation for The Desolation of Smaug, hoping beyond hope that it would be something of an improvement over the first film. Thankfully, it was.

As I said in my previous review, one of the strongest things that this movie has going for it is it's cast. I'm more fond of Bilbo now than I was watching the first one and besides being just as quirky and clever, his character is fleshed out more in this installment. He carries with him the One Ring that he thieved off of Gollum in the first movie and frequently uses it's invisibility. However, this power comes at a price and we see that the Ring's evil is already rubbing off as Bilbo casts the occasional dark stare and becomes intermittently aggressive during combat. It's not a subplot that leads anywhere, but it remains ever ominous.

The rest of the cast is strong as well. One of the most surprising appearences to see in this film was that of Evangeline Lilly of Lost fame who plays a likable Wood Elf named Tauriel. Ian McKellen is as great as always as Gandalf The Grey and the company of dwarves are much more interesting this time around as they too are explored much more and offer more than simply comic-relief.

I found this film to be something of a series of highs and lows. One scene would be invigorating and exciting and the next would be much less so. I'm not simply referring to action scenes versus talking scenes. Talking scenes can be just as interesting if the subject is something of interest. However I found that oftentimes this was not the case. I don't much care of the going ons of a small, malnourished lake-town or a bowman named Bard, no matter how charming his children. I understand that the writers are really reaching for filler, trying to stretch a single book over three films but in the end, filler is filler and I found myself bored more than once in the theatre.

On the other spectrum, the action in this one is worlds better than it was in the first. Gone is the slapstick silliness that encompassed much of An Unexpected Journey. In Smaug, we have action that feels much more like the Lord of the Rings that we all know and love. Heads are sliced from their shoulders, Orcs are impaled by arrows and I actually saw blood in one scene. Don't get me wrong, I'm not just a blood-hound who's in it for gore, but I prefer my Middle Earth to be geared towards adults rather than trying to pander to a broader age-group. It's still not on par with the "realistic" war sequences and gritty sword fights that was just one of the many things that made the original trilogy so exemplary, but it's a start.

My main complaint against this film besides the whole...

Who the fuck decided to shoot this film in forty frames per second that is so fucking annoying and no one liked it the first time so why do it again you stubborn bastards I hope the idiot who came up with that shitty idea fucking burns to death fuck.

Yeah, besides that, would be that nothing anywhere in the film, perhaps save for the wide, mountainous landscape shots, looks real or natural. Even the aged and gnarled tendrils of the Elven woods look remarkably set-like. Everything appears as if it's trying very hard to look old, ancient and intricate without actually being old, ancient or intricate somehow. It's stuck halfway between something out of a storybook and a real landscape and filling the cracks with CG didn't help to make the result any less awkward. Fresh off of Valhalla Rising, the "natural" world of Middle Earth has never looked more artificial to me.

I think that this one is worth the watch much more so than the first. If you watched An Unexpected Journey and liked that, you'll like this. If you didn't like An Unexpected Journey, then you should probably see this anyway because it's an improvement and the final scenes (which I won't spoil) make it worth it in full.

7.75/10 - An improvement over the first.

Valhalla Rising

One might be tempted to put this film on a list of movies that are not nearly as popular as they should be. Valhalla Rising is an ethereal tale of 11th century superstition and barbarism. It's not a film that is heavy on plot so much as it is atmosphere and visual quality and only few sparse lines of dialogue accompany it.

The film plays out in six distinct parts so attempting to coherently explain "what it's about" is easier said than done. Truly the only way to do so would be to summarize it completely and I have no desire to ruin the movie for anyone. The reason it is so difficult to talk about is because Valhalla Rising isn't really "about" anything. It follows a nameless, mute, Norse warrior who's blind in one eye and is being held captive by people unknown for reasons unknown. Here, he is tied to a stake and pitted against other prisoners in unarmed fights to the death.

The Norse prisoner, who is occasionally referred to by other characters as One-Eye is played by Mads Mikkelsen whom you may recognize as the main antagonist of 007 Casino Royale. Interestingly, Mikkelsen was blind in the very same eye in that film as well.

"One-Eye" delivers the finishing blow to a fellow prisoner.

It isn't long before "One-Eye" is able to escape his captors thanks to a vision he had that led him to discovering an arrowhead on the bottom of a river. Soon after his escape, he runs into a band of Christian Crusaders, standing over a fresh pile of corpses and on their way to Jerusalem. They ask One-Eye to join them in their quest and he complacently goes along.

I love that this film doesn't bother itself with anything it finds unnecessary. It gives you the bare minimum and lets the viewer sort everything out. We don't need a backstory on One-Eye and we don't need every mythological detail spelled out for us. The mystification of the film says more than words ever could.

Every single second of the 90 minute run-time of Valhalla Rising is beautiful. Shot entirely in the haunting mountains of Scotland, the film looks incredibly authentic and earthy which works wonders to illustrate the age of the Crusades and efficaciously defines the Norse theme. It's just one more example that the real thing is infinitely more effective than CG.

It's gritty, realistic and above all sparse employment of violence goes even further to set Valhalla Rising apart from your run-of-the-mill film. When violence happens, it happens and the movie doesn't linger or relish in it.

Valhalla Rising is a unique masterpiece of beautiful brutality. Of myth and war and religion. It slips between the real and the ethereal flawlessly and dramatically. This is exactly the way I would make a film if I were in the director's chair. It's very hard to talk about and must be seen to be understood. So see it.

10/10 - Perfection.

Upcoming: Godzilla (Teaser Trailer)

It's been since June since I've done an update for the upcoming 2014 Godzilla reboot. I'm posting this one in commemoration of the recently released official teaser trailer. Take a look.

I think this looks pretty promising. I very much like how they're keeping Godzilla's appearance more or less a secret and it seems that the approach they're going for is fairly minimalist. I mean, sure, it's still a damn Godzilla movie, but the few explosions I saw weren't CG and I didn't catch any overly intense gun-fights or something of the sort. Also, the general lack of music and sound is a key point to this end.
Also, something to note, this may just be turning into my dream film as it seems that Gareth Edwards, the director, is passionate about visual quality. All of those long, sustained shots of the gray skies and citywide carnage as the plumes of red flare-smoke descend into it. The way the dust and rubble tumbles across Godzilla's body as he rears his head to be caught in the sun's back-lighting. I think it's safe to say that this film will be a great visual treat.

Hopefully we won't be getting that cop-out of an ending as we did in '98 where the military force is able to stamp out the Godzilla menace. Whereas in literally every other Godzilla movie ever, the military can barely hold a candle to Godzilla, if you've ever seen the '98 American version, you know he was killed by jet-fire. I think that happening again would be unlikely, but I'm not holding my breath.

And y'know what? I'm not at all surprised that Godzilla is completely CG, matter of fact, from the couple of glimpses we get of him, I think he looks fucking awesome. It's an updated version of him, which is fine because his looks are changed every couple of years, but it doesn't look wholly un-Godzilla like the '98 Godzilla did, who was actually acknowledged and renamed "Zilla" in the Japanese series. Matter of fact, Gareth Edwards stressed that it was important that this Godzilla felt like the Toho Godzilla.

This is the clearest shot we get of him.

As far as the other monster goes, not much is known. However, it's rumored that the foe will look something like this:

I've never seen that thing before so there may actually be a decent chance that the enemies featured in this one will be totally new. That may or may not be good news to you (Ghidorah's out of the running) but hell, at least it's something.

Godzilla has a release date set for May, 16th, 2014 so clear up your fucking calendar in advance because this looks promising.

Keep checking the Aculeus and I'll keep you guys updated with whatever comes my way.

Top 10 Reasons To Hate Grindcore

When I wrote my article titled Unquantifiable, I talked about how music is not something that can be graded but rather something that varies from person to person; that it's an entirely taste-based thing. That being said, I also jokingly remarked that this doesn't change the fact that if you listen to grindcore, you're still a fucking idiot. I wanted to elaborate on what I was talking about when I said that. Grindcore is a genre of metal that utilizes guttural growling, pig squealing, overdriven basses and so much guitar distortion that it becomes almost unrecognizable as an instrument. Here's a prominent grindcore band for reference.

Since I didn't want to make a whole long rant about this, I'll make it easy. Here's top 10 reasons to hate grindcore.

10. Embarrassing Band Names

"Oh, what sort of bands are you into?"

"These days I'm really digging Anal Cunt, Sperm Swamp, Meat Shits and Cock and Ball Torture."

Grindcore is a genre that is built upon shock-value and attention-seeking. Thus, most bands give themselves repulsive titles that you can't even discuss in public without sounding like a necrophiliac. It's one thing to have a name that's edgy and badass sounding like Darkthrone or Beneath the Massacre but grindcore takes it to a whole new level of stupidity.

9. Disgusting Lyrics

I know I'm starting to sound more and more like a mother who's kid listens to metal but seriously the lyrics of the typical grindcore band ranges from outright disposition towards everything to the point of absurdity, to graphic descriptions of gore, to something that sounds like it was written by a dirty minded sixth grader who just learned what sex is.

For example:

Randomly Raped Rectum by Lividity:

Now, I apologize because that's downright abhorrent but it's only the icing on the cake that is grindcore lyrics. If you're curious enough, you can go searching for yourself.

The thing that most bothers me about this is not that it's just gross and stupid but that most metal lyrics are about deep topics ranging from human nature, to life and death, to debating religion and other times just being about mythology or the natural world around us. Grindcore is an absolute joke by comparison.

8. Gross-Out Artwork

I'm not going to post any pictures of the sort of shit that grindcore bands like to use for their album covers because not only is it way beyond NSFW, I hate looking at it and I don't want to search for it. Once again, if you're curious enough, go looking for yourself but I warn you, it's nasty shit.

Who would want to have that sort of garbage in their music library or have it staring at them whenever it shuffles up on their MP3 player? Furthermore, the artwork shown on the covers of these albums prevents them from being able to be sold anywhere that has any kind of standards. Knowing that almost makes it seem that these bands are begging to have their shit pirated.

It's commonplace for death meal bands to put all sorts of gore on their album covers, but even there it's fucking annoying.

7. Void Fanbase

Good God, there's nothing worse than an avid grindcore fan. If you thought typical metalheads were bad, you have no idea. Go check out some grindcore forums or read the comments underneath a grindcore video on Youtube.

The fans are the kind of person who is enthralled by this sort of edgy-goad that these bands are intentionally appealing towards. They listen to grindcore purely to "like" something that no one else can stand and to seem badass. They are not badass. They are annoying.

6. Poser Artists

And while we're on the subject of posing, let's take a look at the artists themselves. These guys sing about killing random people, hating everything, rape, burning shit and just general deviance. So who are these mentally unstable, and seriously dangerous individuals? Let's take a look.

Here's a picture of Goat Eater trying to look as badass as possible.

Look out! He's gonna get you!

Not convinced these characters are true threats everyone around them? Take a look at Brutal Dissection.

Oh fuck! Leather jackets!

So basically, they're those weird kids who sat at the table in the corner when you were in high-school. I'm not saying that I'm disappointed that they're not murdering and raping everyone who crosses them, I'm saying they should practice what they fucking preach. Black metal bands talk about burning churches and sacrificing animals but the artists actually do that shit.
Oh, and by the way, if you were thinking that I'm being unfair and that black metal bands are likely the same thing, here's Gorgoroth.

5. Those Vocals

The vocals of that music you heard above was probably the most standout thing to you. I shouldn't even have to say anything about it because it's the bloody elephant in the room. It's growly, pig-squealing to the point of almost being funny. I cannot imagine seriously listening to that shit all the time.

4. Kettle Drums

Why is it that every fucking grindcore band in existence has to have kettle drums? If you don't know what kettle drums are, listen to that song above again. Or if you want another example, try this and pay attention to the drumming.

It's just a kind of drum that happens to sound like popcorn on cocaine. Once you notice that it's there, it's so blisteringly annoying that you'll never be able to focus on anything else. Why can't they just use, oh I don't know, normal drums? Like everyone else?

3. No Variety

As long as I'm talking about things that every grind band does, I may as well just address the overall lack of variety in general. In any other sect of metal, you'd be looking at dozens of sub-genres within those encompassing titles. In black metal alone, you have Raw Black Metal, Folk Metal, Ambient Black Metal, Avant-Garde Black Metal, Post-Black Metal, Atmospheric Black Metal, Industrial Black Metal, Viking Metal, Experimental Black Metal, Depressive Black Metal, Symphonic Black Metal, Melodic Black Metal and that's only scratching the surface.

When it comes to grind you've got, Grindcore (pure), Deathgrind (a combination of death and grind elements), Pornogrind (grindcore with lyrics about porn), Cybergrind (I honestly have no idea what that is) and Noisegrind (basically just noise). That is literally everything I found after searching dark grind forums.

2. No Respect Among The Metal Community

There's a reason that you'd have to look into strictly grindcore forums to find anything about grindcore. As far as the metal community is concerned, grindcore is not even considered metal. I am dead serious. If you've ever wanted to be laughed out of a metal thread, start talking about how much you love grind.

You will get shit on harder than a Torsofuk dream.

1. It Gives The Rest Of Us A Shitty Reputation

As much as almost every strongly held conception of metal and the metal community is largely false, people still consider it to be a kind of music dominated by freaks, killers and brain-dead headbangers. While bands like Cannibal Corpse have done nothing but reinforce that from day one, there's nothing that's holding that up to the extent that grindcore is.

With all of that absurd banging on kettle drums, extreme distortion, growls that are so guttural it's laughable, lyrics about gore and porn and names that are gross just to say, grindcore is almost a parody of the metal genre. If it were just that, a satyrical look at our community, not to be taken seriously (like the Weird-Al Yankovic of metal), that'd be fine with me. Unfortunately, that's not the case and people actually do take this music seriously.

Given all of that, it's no wonder metal is hated by everyone outside of it. You have to dig around all of that garbage to discover the poetic nature that encompasses the bulk of metal. So thank you cordially, grindcore, for not just making yourselves look like perverted teenagers going through a phase, but for making all of us look like that too.