ANTIGAMA

ANTIGAMA "Whiteout"

By Dr. Abner Mality

Welcome back, ANTIGAMA. It's been a while. Seven years, as a matter of fact, since the Polish grind extremists have graced us with their last album, "The Insolent".

They make up for lost time, turning a musical flamethrower on the listener with the very first second of "Undeterminate". And there isn't much let up from there. It seems like the band is putting all the pent up rage and extremity of the last seven years into this album, which is a relentless attack that comes in two shades: brutal and more brutal.

For the first time in a long time, there's no electronic soundscape or free jazz freakout to break up the grind on "Whiteout". Although saxophone player Marcin Kajper joins the assault on the instrumental "2222", unleashing furious blasts of sax over a machine gun beat. That's part and parcel of the always experimental nature of ANTIGAMA, which here takes a bit of a back seat to NASUM-like grind.

There's always been an industrial, mechanical side to the band and here's it's very obvious. I see the band has a human drummer Pawel Jaroszewicz, but it's pretty hard to tell by listening to the withering machine gun fire percussion. The songs and album itself are fittingly short, which keeps the drum barrage tolerable. Some tracks like "Debt Pool" and "Align" are 1000% mile an hour grind while others like "Holy Hand" and "Hindrance" are a bit more riff-based but still pretty intense. The vocals are inhuman roars that relate cryptic but ominous free form verse.

Poland's gods of grindcore are back in action. Put on your asbestos suit and get ready to walk in fire.

SELFMADEGOD RECORDS

ANTIGAMA