WALKING CORPSE Our Hands, Your Throat DIGIPAK [CD]

It's not too often that you come across a grindcore album that gives you the kind of thrilling intensity that you've come to expect from this style of music and at the same time there's unpredictability in the writing which keeps you hooked. Walking Corpse from Sweden are able to do just this - step on the accelerator till your hair starts to tear off, deviate from the path abruptly, and before you know it, jump back on the track with increased neck-snapping speed. There's a twisted, dissonant edge to the music here as it rampages with abandon, borrowing elements of death metal and even a bit of sludge, and throws everything at you faster than you can flinch. And between all of that, they unfailingly slip in an earth-shattering breakdown or two, just to make sure that you aren't sitting for too long. This is cerebral grind delivered with spine-rupturing mayhem. And with every song vying to offer something remarkable, it's difficult to keep track of the album's highlights or your injuries. With their aggressive and innovative approach, Walking Corpse have achieved the elusive balance of providing variations to break monotony and even predictability without compromising on the pure blistering, cathartic expression of grindcore; the album remains enjoyable and thoroughly engaging. It's as close to a perfect grind album as it gets in these times.

For fans of: Rotten Sound, Fuck the Facts, Bathtub Shitter, Terra Builder, Spurn, Antigama, Ernia