REVIEW: Phobia – 22 Random Acts of Violence

Having formed in 1990, Phobia has been playing raging socio-political grindcore for around 18 years in Orange County, California. Their style is rooted in old school grind mixed with some extremely aggressive crusty hardcore punk influences.

If you follow my tastes in music at all (and why the hell would you) it has traditionally been pretty rare for me to endorse older grind bands. I really don’t see the big deal about bands like Terrorizer, early Carcass, early Napalm Death and early Brutal Truth other than a historic perspective. Early grind albums sound like they were played and recorded like shit, and they’re usually pretty bloody slow slow. I’ve always been more partial to newer school grind like Gridlink, Discordance Axis, Pig Destroyer, Rotten Sound and Trap Them – however, with the rise of some incredible new bands playing stripped down, old school grind (such as The Kill, Captain Cleanoff, Insect Warfare and Kill the Client), and by realizing the limitations of some of the formulaic modern grind bands (Rotten Sound) I've had to eat my own words.

Phobia has helped continue this trend. I can vaguely remember hearing one Phobia album sometime in my youth and not really thinking much of it. I can’t tell you what that album was called, but I can tell you this: this album fucking RULES! 22 Random Acts of Violence’s is an absolutely relentless slab of pure grindcore, seething with political frustration and violent empathy.

Production wise the album has an awesome stripped back feel, with crusty grind guitar tones and minimalist drum mic’ing. There is no production trickery to be had now, just unabated grind fury. The vocals are heavily hardcore punk influences, consisting more of throaty yells than (lame) death growls. I’ve always preferred a hardcore or mid-range vocal style; death metal vocals have always come across to me as contrived, dull, over-used and above all, totally lacking in aggression. “Raarr arra raar”, “Yeah you sound like like a retarded frog, how ‘brutal’.”

What is impressive is that Phobia do take small elements from more modern grindcore, like a Swedish grind influenced passage in Rise Up, or a punk styled breakdown in Bring The War. They don’t shy away from some old school metal solo’ing either, and there are some hilarious samples scattered throughout the album.

Phobia have managed to encapsulate my favourite type of grindcore; relentless, raw and aggressive while maintaining throwbacks to hardcore punk and introducing any additional elements as they see fit. There is a reason why Phobia have been one of the most respected and enduring bands in the grind scene. This is definitely one of the best extreme releases to come out this year; hats off to Willowtip. Recommended for fans of Insect Warfare, Kill the Client, Captain Cleanoff or violence grindcore in general; just sit back and enjoy.

Now these bastards just have to tour Australia!

http://www.myspace.com/phobiagrindcore
http://www.willowtip.com/