New Reviews For Unrestrained! #39: Landmine Marathon, Total Fucking Destruction

LANDMINE MARATHON Rusted Eyes Awake
Level Plane 9.5 Kim Kelly

I’ve gotta admit, I was a little apprehensive when I first heard about this band. So, you’re telling me that what we’ve got here is a female-fronted, metal/hardcore band from Arizona, that, instead of ripping off whatever third-generation deathcore act is burning up the Hot Topic sales charts this week, channels the earliest days of death grind glory and melds the battle groove of Bolt Thrower with the nasty gutterbeats of crust punk? I smelled a rat. Luckily for me (and you!), Landmine Marathon is the real fucking deal, and Rusted Eyes Awake is one of the best records I’ve heard all year. The Bolt Thrower influence on Rusted Eyes Awake is loud and proud, fused with that classic Earache groove’n’grind that digs up shreds of Morbid Angel and even old-school Entombed. Hell, they even got that filthy, bottom-heavy guitar tone just right. Add in a fine layer of crusty grime by way of Doom/Discharge and some seriously gnarly vocals, and there you have it - a truly wrathful death march to victory. Singer Grace’s raw-throated growl puts glamazons like Angela Gossow to shame (and I’m dying to ask what brand of firewater she’s been downing – that girl sounds like she’s been gargling a throat’s full of broken glass since the day she bought her first Infest patch). I bet this band annihilates live, and leave a trail of blood, smoke, and broken forties in their wake. In grind we crust, motherfuckers!




TOTAL FUCKING DESTRUCTION
Peace, Love, and Total Fucking Destruction
Enucleation Records
8.5
Kim Kelly

As a band, Total Fucking Destruction may just possess the most fitting moniker out there. Not content to simply grind your face into a bloody, blastbeaten pulp, TFD take it upon themselves to provide the blistering soundtrack to a total breakdown of societal ideals; an apocalyptic war on terror, justice, and all that we hold dear. Equal parts performance art, breakneck grind, and vitriolic social commentary, TFD aim to destroy – and damned if they don’t deliver. Peace, Love, and Total Fucking Destruction is the band’s debut for Enucleation Records, and it’s like nothing you’ve ever heard before. Imagine the Minutemen on crystal meth, and you’re halfway there. Tempered with the band’s signature hashgrind and a bevy of anthemic punk rock singalongs (that quickly descend into gibbering madness), the sonic experimentation, balls-out mindfuckery, and straight up rock’n’roll found on this release defies convention, description, and, er, pretty much everything. Add in some of the best song titles this side of AxCx –see “Seth Putnam is Wrong About a Lot of Things, But Seth Putnam is Right About You,” and “Fuck the Internet” for proof of that – and you’ve got yourself a TFD record. Not for the faint of heart or the orthodox grindfreak; this one’s for the open-minded, the conspiracy theorists, and the eternally pissed.