SAWTOOTH GRINCuddlemonsterThe Sawtooth Grin Official Site grindcore
Complete fucking insanity; you've heard the phrase before. Psyopus, Ion Dissonance, and Bodies In The Gears Of The Apparatus are among the select few bands that qualify for this 'category', whose dense layers of grind/tech/chaos yield completely unprecedented, inimitable new metal extremes that border on sheer absurdity. Presenting The Sawtooth Grin, your new favorite band. If a philosophy professor with alzheimer's overdosed on meth and acid at the same time, his/her brain would sound something like this. The Sawtooth Grin land somewhere between tech metal, grind, and hardcore. Blistering grind-blasts that would otherwise sound incomprehensible are complemented by ultra-clear, sarcastic, zany guitar leads a-la-Red Chord or Psyopus. Constant tempo shifts and psychotic speed-ups will always keep you on your toes, while the bizarre interplay of guitar melody and fret sprints gives the band some tech depth. The riff styles are similar in some ways to the guitar acrobatics of Psyopus' Chris Arp, who somehow constructs "meta" melodies that use guitar insanity to build broad melodic motifs that are as catchy as a pop song, while still constructed with the nuts and bolts of tech/chaos madness. The drums are absurdly fast, commanding the band's momentum through frightening wind-up dashes and groove-laden breakdowns. There's plenty of off-time snare work and punishing double-bass drum insanity that brings Ion Dissonance to mind. The vocals are extremely overdriven and maxed out, much like the headache-inducing, distorted screams you'd expect out of a Japanese grindcore band. They may be a bit much for some listeners to handle, and while I'll commend them for how well they layer different scream frequencies for added impact, I do find the vocals to be the most monotonous aspect of this band. The biggest complaint I hear about many of these new math/tech/grind hybrids is how arbitrary and un-memorable their songs are. Perhaps my mind has been permanently perverted by this insanity, but The Sawtooth Grin write songs that make an instant impression on me. Between their highly danceable, furious breakdown grooves and constant fret movements, I hear shards of songs and riff samples flying through my head for hours after I listen through "Cuddlemonster"... permanent brain damage, no doubt. In "A 2 Minute Lecture On The Finer Points Of Instability" you can here a them building up to a breakdown for the first 30 seconds while still barreling through different drum tempos and riff patterns, somehow maintaining the song's nuclear progression while bending its boundaries every which way. Simply stunning. As extreme and technical as it is, you'll either love or hate The Sawtooth Grin. Grind tempos and overly-distorted vocal screams can get old fast, but The Sawtooth Grin make grind/tech tunes that are as animated and enjoyable as they are completely absurd. The production is incredibly tight for a grind band whose vocals completely max out the board, without which the mind-boggling guitar work would be lost. Fans of Psyopus, The Red Chord, Ion Dissonance, Ed Gein, End Of All, Cephalic Carnage, and more will adore "Cuddlemonster". I can't wait to see what these guys do next...
------------------------------ Imagine being woken up to find yourself being eaten by hundreds of rats and a few flesh eating bacteria. At first you would be very confused by the situation, but after a few seconds of thought and insight, you'd realize how much you love it. Now, imagine a band by the name of The Sawtooth Grin that is that experience, but throw in a few calculators and increase the throttle. That would for the most part sum up Cuddlemonster, which in fact is 99% monster and 1% cuddle. Don't believe the title, this isn't the kind of music that you can cuddle to, unless you played it on 1 rpm and all the lights blew out. Due to the short overall length, you'll want to listen again, like a freshly skinned knee that stings. Blowing on it repeatedly brings emotions of discord and infatuation quite quickly. A shortcoming I found was that at times this reminded me of The Dillinger Escape Plan, which is a hard feat to pull of well, but in all fairness those moments of remembrance lasted very shortly. If you don't like loud and noisy music, this definitely would not be your cup of tequila. If the words "grind", "tech", and "fucking insane" raise your brow, look no further than The Sawtooth Grin. --------------- The Sawtooth Grin are quite the listen. From the first track, you are thrown into a whirlwind of grind, fronted with a singer that has, quite possibly, the most annoying scream in the world. That scream though is like that one guy you meet and you really don't like him at first. Then you go out one night, he gives you a beer, and you sit down and talk about stuff a bit and you find out he isn't all that bad. The drumming on this record is so chaotic, it's hard to follow what is going on from time to time. The first standout track on the album would have to be "A 2 Minute Lecture On the Finer Points of Instability." Clocking in at 2:03, it takes you on quite a little ride. It starts off blazing. The drums just rip through and finally start to break apart and everyone meets in this pseudo-breakdown that just goes right back into blazing fast speeds before meeting again into this carnival-esque sound. Finally about a minute into the song it goes into their "emo-grind" as I like to call it. The song finishes up blazing right on through. The next song is a personal fav of mine titled, "Sometimes She Tasted Like Burnt Plastic Smells." The beginning sounds like you are being confronted by Bowser immediately followed by breakneak speeds of insane grind. The reason I like this song though is because I am a huge fan of songs that are big breakdowns, and this song does it well. About 1:10 into the song it's your typical breakdown sound, which I love. The singer is just going crazy during it. It breaks out from the breakdown into a fast grind part only to find itself back in the breakdown moments later. It turns into this clappy, wanna be jazz part for a second, before ending the song in pure mayhem. ---------------
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