A note on history: Taking metal to 1ts zenith

> The extreme growth of grindcore

Caroline Ho
Arts Editor

 

he term “extreme metal” refers to

music that takes all the characteristics
of metal and pushes them even further.
Basically, it’s metal at its fastest, rawest,
most abrasive, and noisiest. One of the
extreme genres that is perhaps most
noisy, abrasive, and fast is grindcore.

Grindcore emerged as the unholy
union of hardcore punk and thrash metal,
both of which blossomed as distinctive
sounds sometime in the late 1970s.

Thrash metal was distinguishable by its
high-speed, aggressive, complex guitar
riffs—think early Metallica. Hardcore
punk was also rapid and angry, usually
with vocals screaming about politics, social
issues, and general antiestablishment
rawness. Hardcore groups like Black Flag
thrived and simmered with anarchic
sentiment in underground scenes.

Go even faster and more intense, and
that’s where grindcore came in. The most
notable precursors of the genre were Siege,
a hardcore outfit from Massachusetts,
whose goal was to play as fast as humanly
possible, and Michigan-based death metal
group Repulsion, who released a handful
of demos in the mid-’8os before their first
and only album Horrified came out in 1989.

Grindcore coalesced as a genre with
the band Napalm Death. Formed in
Britain in 1981, they were first part of the
anarcho-punk scene, then in the mid-
80s incorporated more aspects of thrash
and the superfast drumming that would
become the key characteristic of grindcore.
Drummer Mick Harris is one of the people
credited with coining the name, based on
the blistering speeds of his percussion—

though other sources suggest the name
came from the harsh down-tuned
“grinding” noise of the guitars. Whatever
the precise origins, Napalm Death gained
some moderate mainstream success in the
late ’80s and early ’gos, releasing several
albums, going on a few tours, and being
featured in a few music magazines.
Other bands in the UK were
influenced by Napalm Death, including
Carcass, formed in 1985, and Extreme
Noise Terror, the band Mick Harris
joined in 1987. In the ’gos, the heart of
grindcore shifted to the US, featuring
bands like Terrorizer, Brutal Truth
(which included the former bassist

War of the words:
‘Moonlight’ for best picture

> Why ‘Moonlight’ is most deserving of the Oscar

Jessica Berget
Staff Writer

he Oscars were February 26, which
means the debate concerning which
rdbonm alla sse Wola asda OR eT B Tore DOR
brought to an end, and a new debate
over which film should have won is
going to replace it. But to save time
and energy, I can tell you exactly which
movie is going to and should win best
picture this year. That film is Moonlight.
Very rarely do I come across a film
that touches on themes of sexuality,
race, and human relationships as
eloquently as Moonlight. Very rarely
do I come across a film that addresses
even one of these themes at all. It left
me speechless. Not only does this film
give a gripping and detailed account
of a Black youth growing up and
discovering himself and his sexuality,
it executes the story honestly and
flawlessly. Never has a film been so
real with the hardships of finding one’s
sexuality and growing up facing societal

inequalities, and I doubt any film will
do it again. Or even come close.

The reasons for Moonlight’s
success are its incredible cast,
stunning cinematography, and
beautiful storyline. Movies that focus
on anthologies and jump through
time can be quite difficult to achieve,
but Moonlight succeeds without
missing a beat. The film is tender and
compassionate and the production
value will take your breath away.

The actors who portray the
main character Little throughout
the different stages of his life do so
with such consistency and passion
that it’s a performance to behold on
all three accounts. Even though each
actor is in the film for a only third of
the time that any of the other actors
nominated for Best Actor are in their
own respective films, I would argue that
the main actors in Moonlight deserve
an Oscar nomination, if not a win, for
their short but heartfelt performances,
which is a lot more than I can say
about any of the actors in La La Land.

  

 

Image via rovicorp.com

of thrash heavyweight Anthrax), Pig
Destroyer, and more. Though never a
phenomenally popular genre, it continues
to grow in popularity with its fans.

The defining characteristic of
grindcore is the “blast beat,” a super fast
drum beat played in 16th or 32nd notes
across the bass and snare drums. The
result is a frenetic and distinctive blast-
like pace. Initial usage of the term “blast
beat” is again attributed to Napalm Death,
although they weren't the first to use the
technique. Blast beats and variations of it,
such as the gravity roll and bomb blast, are
also found in other types of extreme metal.

I've never been as physically
repelled from a movie as much as I have
with La La Land. It is so passionless
and full of cliché story tropes and
quotes that it is almost unbearable.
Even the title of the film makes me
unconsciously cringe. Something about
the whole premise of the film screams
“Oscar bait” (Ryan Gosling and Emma
Stone in a musical, I mean, come on).
It’s not that I don’t understand why
some people would enjoy the film. On
the contrary, on the surface La La Land
looks like an enchanting story with
enjoyable cinematography and good
lyricism. But that’s enough to make
almost anyone enjoy a movie. Scratch
beneath the surface, though, and it is
essentially a middle school play with
better lighting and production value.

On the other hand, not only is
Moonlight a beautiful film, the Oscars
awarding a film as profound and diverse
as this one would be a great victory for
both the Black and LGBTQ+ community,
which is why it is so important that it
wins. Even if Moonlight doesn’t win the

Another feature of the grindcore
genre is having exceptionally short
songs or “microsongs,” a consequence
of playing ridiculously fast. A lot of
grindcore albums are only about 20
minutes long, as opposed to the usual 10
to 12-track, 40 to 45-minute LPs of most
genres. Napalm Death currently holds
the Guinness World Record for shortest
song with their 1987 track “You Suffer,” at
1.316 seconds long. Supposedly the song’s
lyrics are “You suffer/But why?” but it
sounds more like a very brief “Rrraaaahh.”
The vocals of grindcore are usually
death growls and high-pitched shrieks
that are often deliberately unintelligible.
Lyrics, if there are any at all, tend to be
provocative in a variety of ways. Some
artists and groups, in the vein of hardcore
punk, tend to focus on sociopolitical
themes of anarchism and anti-capitalism.
Lyrical variation has also led to a few scion
subgenres of grindcore by musicians who
thought that grindcore had become too
derivative of far-left themes. Goregrind,
pioneered by Carcass, treats subject matter
about blood, gore, forensic pathology,
and death. Pornogrind, as its name
suggests, focuses on sex and perversion.
Grindcore has also led to the
development of subgenres that are
stylistic rather than thematic offshoots,
notably deathgrind, which blends the
technical sophistication of death metal
with the breakneck tempo of grindcore,
and electrogrind, which incorporates
electronic and industrial metal elements.
Grindcore certainly isn’t everyone’s
cup of tea, but you can't deny that it
succeeds at what it sets out to do—to push
metal to its absolute limits, making music
as fast and noisy as physically possible.

Image via via A24

Oscar, the film is so brilliantly done that
it will be remembered for years to come.
It is the best movie of 2017, or even the
decade, with or without the Oscar.