Graf Orlock Burn the Tapes on the Fiery 'End Credits'

Though there are a few cinemagrind bands in existence, it's a rarefied genre ruled by Los Angeles sample forefathers Graf Orlock. Spot welding poignant movie excerpts to grindcore bursts has never been done carelessly by founding members Jason Schmidt (guitar, vocals, samples) and Alan Hunter (drums, album art), but instead with thematic sagacity and hardcore panache. Their record packages alone — 2007's Destination Time Tomorrow came wrapped in a cardboard 'chestburster' from the Alien movie franchise, while 2011's Doombox featured a large, pop-out boombox replica — are all highly sought-after collectables, though it's the confrontational music that lingers most in fans' minds.

The band has announced that the five-song End Credits EP, with befittingly charred packaging, is their final official release, and keeping to that motif, the movie samples are drawn from post-apocalyptic fare. Prefaced by the famous warning broadcast from Judge Dredd, "Mega City Blues" blows out the sub-woofers with Deadguy-esque ferocity, and main throat Karl Bournze spews extra hatred and despair, augmented by Schmidt's equally vicious backing vocals. After Allison Pill's psychopathic children's chorus from Snowpiercer, "Those Bastards in the Front Sections" lurches forth with double-timed drum breaks and ravenous breakdowns. 

The mid-section of "Unloading an Unwanted Passenger" has enough metal swing to induce sure-to-be hilarious posturing from the moshpit elite. With only a titular nod to King Crimson's debut album (and a choice line from Clive Owen in Children of Men), "In the Court of the Crimson King" ends fervently with sombre, Coalesce-like riffs, as if the villain-slaying hero is indeed taking his last breath. Is End Credits truly the end, though? It's hard to believe that the band is giving up the ghost like their spiritual counterparts Killwhitneydead did in 2017, but Graf Orlock could always return Schwarzenegger-style, grizzled but steely-eyed, to grace us with more blasts of grinding intimidation in the future.