Familiar faces Grinding Halt start this little bruiser off with ‘Kaaskoppen’, exploding into life with a violent series of shrieks and crashes before trailing out with a killer melodic break that bleeds into ‘Knuffelverzet’, the tense calm of which reminds me of ‘ESP’ off the first Keelhaul album, albeit with tormented howls atop it all. Closer ‘Bedrog’ kinda mashes all that preceded it together, slippery melodic riffs crunching up against heavier ones while Mark screams his bloody head off. This last one, despite being brutal as all fuck, is also bizarrely rousing and I rather wish it lasted a bit longer than it does.
Fellow Dutchmen Suffering Quota are named for an Assück song, so if you were expecting something polite and dainty then you probably came to the wrong place. They start as they mean to go on with the throat-punch of ‘No Lust For Life’ and follow it up with two more bouts of frill-free grind/hardcore that takes its cues from Assück (duh), Phobia and Excruciating Terror with maybe a dab of HHiG in the guitars to boot. For my money Grinding Halt win out on this one, but since it’s still early days for their pals we’ll doubtless have them upping the ante and ready for a rematch soon enough…