I first became aware of Rotten Sound in 2000 when Still Psycho was released. I hadn’t listened to Grindcore since I bought From Enslavement to Obliteration when it came out. I was in for a blast – in many ways. The Finns have remained at the forefront of the Grind scene for two decades always offering something more than a carbon copy of what has gone before. 2016’s Abuse to Suffer was a lecture in violence rather than a lesson in brutality. 18 tracks that whipped the listener through a maelstrom before spitting them out breathless bruised and yearning for another ride.
So, just to confuse us the quartet have now released “Suffer to Abuse” as an EP on Season Of Mist.
What an EP it is! “Privileged “opens with a beat down, a bloody beat down , before chugging into the sort of riff that every hardcore band wish they could achieve and then we are blasting into the pits of hell! Grind/Death/Core/Sludge madness! “The Misfit” has so much swagger I think I got pregnant from my speakers!
“Stressed Mess” is huge. I mean gargantuan. A mahoosive bass riff and drum roll with tortured rasped vocal on top. We are talking evil swamp dwelling sludge here. I have to keep checking that this is RS. These guys have added another gear to their grinding machine and it is 4 wheel drive brutality. “Harvester of Boredom” is the single and the most “trad” grind track on here. It tears along taking your ears and innards with it.
“One Hit Wonder” is spiky and crusty with some awesome drumming – one for Doom fans – the band not the genre.
“Nutrition” does what it says on the tin – feeds the listener a dirt encrusted baguette filled with the filth of mankind. A barrage of crushing riffs forced down your choking oesophagus before “Slaves of Lust” unleashes a 51 second money shot of pure grinding hyperblast. Mad riffing and frantic blastbeats – just what you need as a digestif.
Rotten Sound continue to hold the torch that show others where to go in the world of extremity. Long may it continue.
(9/10 Matt Mason)
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