Various

Robotic Empire offers up a taste of the possible next wave with their Mutation comp, featuring the likes of Ed Gein, the Minor Times and the Abandoned Hearts Club, among others. Garuda opens the proceedings with their Napalm-style grindcore with hardcore punk riffs and almost Kyuss-ish/Sabbath-ian parts. But Minor Times absolutely fucking slays with two new offerings, "I Fuck For Money” and "Glass Ceiling,” of their metallic-laced noise and calculating hardcore battering. Sure it smacks of Botch, but it’s not like they’re doing it anymore so shut up. We’re also finally graced with a new Abandoned Hearts Club offering, "Experimenting With Maturity,” which cleans up their muddy production (however slightly), brings up the electronics and hammers with its bug-like guitar/keyboard noodling parts, oppressive metal riffing and jagged punctuations. Ed Gein, who closes the comp with "Beautiful Corpses” and "The Ever So Familiar Face of the Devoured,” may not equal the quality of their recent Hex full-length here, but continue to impress with their frantic and intricate death/thrash/grind-style of cruelty. Enkephalin, Sea of Thousand and Tyranny of Shaw complete the proceedings, and while Mutation may sag due to the varying differences in production (some muddy, some muddier), as a warning shot across the bow, it’ll get people’s attention.