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Just another Grindcore effort with nothing much to show for itself.-
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| Phobia: Unrelenting |
Grindcore
Relapse Records
November 23rd, 2010
- T.R.O.G. - 0:45
- Rehashed - 1:06
- You Get No Remorse - 0:11
- Enemy Within - 1:10
- Revolt Your Life - 0:39
- Tradition of Power - 1:04
- Sign of Times - 0:59
- Out of Control - 0:35
- Soon - 0:07
- Mental State - 0:45
- Life's Animosity - 1:49
- Dying for Who? - 0:56
- Total Kollapse - 0:16
- Strive Conception - 0:46
- Nothing Matters - 0:43
- Killing Time - 1:48
- If You Used to Be Punk, Then You Never Were - 0:47
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| Review Information |
Release length: 14:26
Review posted on October 25th, 2010
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| | Original Score: 3/5 |
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| 2011 Grading Scale: 5.5/10 |
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| Discography |
Discography covers all information available up to day of review and is updated if future albums are reviewed. |
| Full-Length(s): |
Means of Existence (1998) • Serentiy Through Pain (2001) • Grind Your Fucking Head In (2003) • Curel (2006)
22 Random Acts of Violence (2008)
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| EP(s): |
All that Remains (1992) • Return to Desolation (1993) • Enslaved (1997) • Destroying the Masses (1999) • Get Up and Kill! (2004)
Unrelenting (2010)
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| Split(s): |
Plutocracy/Phobia (1994) • Corrupted/Phobia (1998) • Phobia/Resist and Exist (2002) • Relapse Singles Series Vol. 4 (2004)
Another Four Years of Murder (2006) • Human EP (2009) • Fearing the Dissolve of Humanity (2010) • Gadget/Phobia (2010)
Abaddon Incarnate/Phobia (2011)
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| Demo(s): |
What Went Wrong (1990)
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| Review |
Phobia is a US-based straight forward Grindcore act that has a heavy Punk approach and attitude to their music. Since forming in 1990, the group has issued plenty of Split releases, and EPs, with only a few categorized as full-length material. The group has also been busy in the year 2010, having both a split album with Extinction of Mankind, and then a Split EP with Gadget. Unrelenting is the group's third offering for the year, and clocks in at around fifteen and a half minutes in length, but boasts seventeen tracks in length. For fans of genuine Grindcore, this is as true to the style as one might get today. It's just too bad this release doesn't necessarily offer anything too outstanding.
This is about what you would expect from a Grindcore album in today's society, being a rather straight forward Punk-heavy album with songs with only two of them going much farther past the one minute mark, since many remain around one minute, ten seconds, and less. The music is intense, and the vocals vary between shouting and high pitched scremaing in the background. For the most part, the songs are your traditional blast beats through much of the track, but sometimes the music takes things to a whole other level, such as the song "Nothing Matters", which features some nice guitar work that causes it to stand out more then anything else on the release.
The music is as the title dictates: Unrelenting. While the blast beats on the release can become rather repetitive, the music itself still hits the listener hard from it's sheer speed, and the accompanying guitars. The vocals will take a few songs to grow into, as the shouting sounds almost like the vocalist hadn't warmed up, and just seems to get better as you go along, as if he went into the studio, had them hit play, and hammer them all out in one shot, which really wouldn't be much a shock given the album's length. There's also enough changes in the guitars to give the songs a somewhat unique feel, though, again, there really isn't a lot on here that stands out past what one would expect from a Grindcorew release. Another issue is the random sound in some songs, such as the end of "Out of Control", where the higher pitched screaming vocalist makes a sound that, due to the heavy Punk influence, is probably the band's way of saying "Oi", but instead comes out as a belch, or a near gag, and just sounds lame to hear more then once on the CD.
Of course, Grindcore songs are expected to be short to begin with, but some of these are just obnoxiously short, and really had no reason to even be recorded other then to make Unrelenting look like it has more material then it really does, a tactic that has worked on me many times over. "Soon" is the perfect example which has a sentece shouted, quick drums, then the word "now" being screamed as the seven second track ends. "You Get No Remorse" is another standard short track, coming in at eleven seconds, and is perhaps one of the most generic shot songs ever, as this isn't the first release to do this with it's material. The music on it is a simple blast beat pattern with the vocalist shouting the name of the song, and the higher screaming vocals shouting something else that is not decipherable, then repeat the song name.
If it weren't for the fact that this album actually has a title that perfectly reflects the music that was recorded, this would be a flop. For as many releases as this band has put out, this one doesn't really stand out too much outside the aggressive as all Hell music being played. While it's not really a completely generic release, and there's still some fantastic songs that will get your blood rushing, there's nothing much to go nuts over at times, and the tracks that reach at least fifty seconds really stand out because of how much extra there is to half the release. Unrelenting is an album that die hard Phobia and Grindcore fans will enjoy this release more then anyone who isn't the most dedicated fan of the style. Some of the riffs here can be compared to earlier Napalm Death Grindcore riffs and blast beats, and indeed are as ferocious, but that doesn't mean it will hold the listener's attention past the next hard hitting grind.
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Digital review copy of this release provided by:
Relapse Records.
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