Mammoth Grinder

Cosmic Crypt

BY Connor AtkinsonPublished Jan 22, 2018

9
Extreme music is somewhat parched of the sort of evil sincerity that Mammoth Grinder provides. Chris Ulsh (of Power Trip and Iron Age) takes the mic in vicious assault, with mouldy roars and hoarse grunts throughout the trio's sketchy flavour of punishing, punk-inspired death metal.
 
Let it be known — Cosmic Crypt digests like a bad time playing with a Ouija board. The band's fourth album offers 11 songs that manically smash the hurdles between crust punk, hardcore and death metal. Opening track "Grimmenstein" is an ebb and flow between frenzied riffs and jarring snares without fault or hesitation, while the accented melodies of "Molotov" are fearsome, and the guitar's solo wails desperately.
 
"Human Is Obsolete" is simultaneously the longest and sludgiest offering of the bunch. At just under four minutes, the song is as gripping as it is unforgivably bludgeoning. The d-beat drumming of "Superior Firepower" seems in good nature, but is filthy and sinister at its core. Serving as a coked-out Cro-Mags doing a rendition of a Bolt Thrower cut, it's the soundtrack of opening the wrong door at a sleazy motel to discover a black metal polka party. The phrase "so wrong, it's right" comes to mind.
 
In its entirety, Cosmic Crypt is certainly not sugar-coated, but instead soaked in the blood of those who may oppose Mammoth Grinder's wrath.
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