### Phobia: Cruel

#### 17/02/10 || Habakuk

Kill rape pillage fuck die maim mangle burn slash exterminate wormrot insect warfare namedrop destroy!

Man, I love grind when it’s done the correct way. “Cruel” is chock full of just that. No fancy-shmancy lead guitars, solo crap, math riffs, whatchamacallit. Just full-on stomps in the face, 24/7. Imagine being surprised by a sudden rain shower of strongboxes. Or grand, untuned pianos. There you go, “Cruel”. 27 minutes. These three guys from Cali (at least they were three when they put this one out) have not come to take prisoners, but to drive their monster truck of grind ugliness to your hometown and spew their guts out / play frantic, simplistic, punk-fueled grind respectively. And while I enjoy living in my hometown as it is, I’d enjoy it even more with the Phobia monster truck marauding down my street from time to time.

Some people, it is said, can’t enjoy a 30 minutes non-stop d-beat/blast fest, and those are advised to steer clear of this album. However, Phobia even cater for this strange community at some points, for example during the awesome “Let’s get pissed” at position number 10 which features a headbang-frenzy chorus equally great to its title. “Let’s get piiiiisseeeed!” – Yep, that’s definitely something that’ll stay in my car stereo. Speaking of driving, the number of 21 songs crammed into the playing time will make sure you’re at song three before you shift gears for the first time. Yes, I drive stick shift, and you should too.

In theory, the vocals are your standard grind grunts with the occasional high-pitched rasp, but both are far above average, obviously a big bonus. The lyrics are probably meant to be punk and whatnot, but even more importantly, they’re shit. And nobody cares, because you really can’t make out much. “Fascist smash face”. Yeah take that you fascist fagets.

Guitars are blessed by a nice, sawing sound and the overall production job sounds nasty, pretty full-on and coherent at that. Scott Hull, ‘nuff said. There is no bass playing, but if I hadn’t told you now, you wouldn’t notice. There are drums, though, as on many grind albums these days, and Danny Walker works ‘em just fine, reasonably varied, hard-hitting and everything. Am I starting to sound careless? Well, that’s how it is, there’s not much more to say. Grab this album if you’re into in-your-face grind and haven’t done so yet. Grab your sword and balls and play falsetto forest-fag if you aren’t. Let’s go!

- Information
- Released: 2006
- Label: Candlelight
- Website: www.phobiagrind.com
- Band
- Shane McLachlan: vocals
- Steve Burda: guitars
- Danny Walker: drums

- Tracklist
- 01. Cruel
- 02. Death to false punks
- 03. So full of hate
- 04. Scientific fraud
- 05. Slaying bastards
- 06. Get the fuck out
- 07. Drunken spree of violence
- 08. Your turn next
- 09. Grind
- 10. Let’s get pissed
- 11. Loud, proud and punk as fuck
- 12. Cursed
- 13. Ignorant Americans
- 14. Yankee swine
- 15. Fascist Smash Face
- 16. War’s with us
- 17. Never
- 18. Kill to love
- 19. War of the sexes
- 20. Enemy of the state
- 21. Numb