Orange County-based grindcore merchants
Phobia
may have topped themselves with album number five, 2012's
Remnants of Filth
, which inflicts 18 barbs of particularly piercing pain in under 20 minutes, thereby leaving the scene of the crime long before the authorities can show up and clean up the mess. In this "crime" they are aided and abetted by
Pig Destroyer
and
Agoraphobic Nosebleed
guitarist
Scott Hull
, who must have sat behind the studio's glass partition making some pretty nasty faces and gnarly gestures (one presumes) to draw such violently furious performances out of his charges. Granted, like most bands that have to say their bit in a minute or less,
tend to abandon their guttural sociopolitical arguments rather prematurely in order to get on with their drooling, bug-eyed screeching conclusions (see "Resolution," "Vengeance Will be Mine," "Atrocious Atrocity," "Inaction," et al.). And yet they still manage to insert an assortment of well-wrought riffs ("Plagued by the System," "No Sympathy for the Weak," "Resuscitate") and flawlessly tone-setting introductory voice-overs borrowed from Gran Torino, Trailer Park Boys, and other pertinent sources ("Assertion to Demean," "Got the Fear," "Let it Go"). What's more, even though the bandmembers see fit to take "Filthy Fucking Punks" to task on the one hand, they turn around and churn out a relatively grindcore-deprived hardcore punk tune of their own in "Deaden to Believe," so there. Clearly, there's much more to the short sharp shock that is
than initially meets the eye and warps the ear -- just be sure you don't blink at the inopportune moment, or you just might miss it. ~ Eduardo Rivadavia