By Kyle Harcott
Trieste’s Grime play the kind of street-trash sludgecrawl that will have you looking frantically for the nearest public restroom, in hopes to try and hobo-bath some of the filth off. Caked in inch-thick sonic disgust, the kind the likes of Eyehategod would be proud to call bastard son, Grime pull no punches as they bootfuck the listener across six sick songs of human misery and violent despair. Song titles like ‘Self-Contempt’, ‘Born Sick’, and ‘Wife Beater’, or liner notes that give “Thanks to Life, for being so miserable” should clue you in automatic that this is not going to be a pleasant journey, but rather some kind of wretched, retching, covered-in-sweat-and-sick, horror show carny ride, barely bolted together and ready to go off the rails any second. Barely-controlled chaos, a late night shamble through a sketchy back alley.
Steeped in biohazardous muck, this EP sounds as mean-spirited as a fist breaking a jaw. Opener ‘Self-Contempt’ is a crawling nightmare of raw-throated vocals chronicling a life swirling down the drain as the guitars heap on misery-slathered thunderbolts of judgment and scorn.
Across the album, the guitar tones are greasy like an upset stomach, and absolutely feral, clearly designed to inflict maximum-volume pain and discomfort in a live assault. Meanwhile the drums, their ugly Neanderthal chop hacking away across the bottom, are simply there to batter listeners to complete submission, or whip them into anarchic fury. When the band locks in and unleashes these snarling, collapsed-vein grooves, it’s clear their music is meant for hurting people, much in the same vein as forebears Cavity and Iron Monkey. Sure, Grime wear their influences like a shiny badge, but so what – they play the dopesick hatesludge game very, very well – certainly on par with those that came before them, and with maybe just a touch more bounce in those puke grooves.
In order for Mordgrimm to put out the band’s self-titled EP, the handful of movie samples on the album had to be removed. The original versions, with samples intact, can be heard at Grime’s Bandcamp, but after repeated listens I find the record doesn’t really need them. By letting the music speak for itself, the EP comes across far more streamlined and if anything, meaner. And I would be in serious error if I didn’t make special mention of the fantastic artwork on the Mordgrimm release – ten panels of creepy, hand-drawn illustrations and lyrics by Dilek Baykara. Her art goes a long way toward giving the albums’ vibe an added edge, and if you’re listening, Mordgrimm, I’d love to someday see her cover piece on a full-sized vinyl jacket (hint, hint).
A nasty bit of business, this Grime – very nasty indeed: Their album hits like a blanket party, but well worth the contusions it leaves behind.
