BEATEN TO DEATH Agronomicon

MAS-KINA Oslo’s grind miscreants run riot through your festivities

Beaten To Death have set the consumer-unfriendly Xmas Eve as the release date for their fourth album. This is par for the course as the quintet have been upending grindcore since 2010, becoming one of extreme music’s most unique outfits. With distortion pedals clicked off and chameleonic vocalist Anders Bakke screaming at the twisted comedy sketches in his noggin, Agronomicon continues assaulting convention. Sophisticated, spidery guitar melodies battle gunfire rhythms and drums probably recorded in a basement torture chamber as played by a tea-totaller nicknamed ‘Bartender’. Nothing makes much sense in BTD’s world; their ability to pen earworms like Catch Twentyfvck, Extremely Run To The Hills and Grind Korn shouldn’t either. But if there is such a thing as imperfect sense, these miscreants have mastered it.

FOR FANS OF: Discordance Axis, Graf Orlock, !T.O.O.H!

CONNIE GORDON