Venomous Concept

For some reason, even though Venomous Concept’s 2004 debut, Retroactive Abortion, contained an all-star underground extreme music line-up (Kevin Sharp, Buzz Osbourne, Shane Embury and Danny Herrara), the tunes just didn’t stick with me, even though it was raging punk-cum-grind. But that’s changed with Poisoned Apple, as the band find a new home (Century Media, hopping over from Ipecac), a new bassist (Dan Lilker) and a better, heavier production sound. Opener "Drop Dead” sounds oddly like the punk side of the band Drop Dead, tunes like "Toxic Kiss” lay down the grind and "Water Cooler” is mid-tempo (for them) heaviness. So now everything’s in place and raw, tossed-off grind-punk has rarely sounded better. Sure, with Brutal Truth back together we have new material to look forward to from them but in the meantime, Venomous Concept have surpassed side-project status with this disc and have crafted something that will tide us over.