Maruta

Comfortably sitting at the top of today's young blood grind crop, alongside Kill the Client and Magrudergrind, this second disc from Florida's Maruta has the math down (16 songs in 29 minutes), paying serious homage to genre heroes Napalm Death and Nasum. So, yes, the disc ploughs ahead at all times, but it has some variety: there are those always great weird guitar notes that bring to mind Discordance Axis or, to keep it fresh, Noisear, in "Strain," a touch of doom heaviness in "Failure King" and lots of Phobia-esque crust influence throughout. "Blood of the Luddite" rages with blasting drums pounding overtop sludge-like riffs. Sure, pound for pound, Forward into Regression isn't much different than their first full-length, which isn't much different from any number of current Willowtip or Relapse grinders, but it totally grinds proper and awesome, with enough variety in the grooves, blasting and shuffle-stepping to keep things interesting. Great work all around, with the only downside being the production, which is almost a bit too full, a bit too stiff, drum-wise, keeping the grooves locked in place a bit too tightly, like the grind version of later day Aborted albums or some of those forgotten-era Napalm Death releases (you know the ones).