Grindcore is, to some, an endless barrage of grueling sonic speed trials. When done to the highest of standards, it’s capable of transcending the long-standing but illusory barriers between hardcore punk, and death metal. Here to make my point far better than I can is Makkmat, an impossibly perfect grind outfit from Norway. Having recently dropped Beina Brenner via Polish label Everyday Hate Records in April, their debut LP is a glorious whirlwind of top shelf extremity.
Though the Arna three-piece hail from the Land of the Midnight Sun, as it were, their opening gambit of a full-length could melt glaciers, if not the whole countryside. Finding the highest of watermarks within m is nigh on impossible, as the thirteen tracks split a half hour in half. Scythe sharp moments abound, like the pummeling low end D-beat of "Spräckta Snutskaller," or the six pack of crushers that comprise the album’s back half.
For me, what ultimately tips the scales from crucial into essential is “Burning Cop.” Instant classic title aside, they pair unrelenting pace with the higher register screeching vocal style perfected by only the most manic of maniacal grind acts of yore. Squarely on the punk end of the grindcore spectrum, their convergence of twisted soundscapes is perfectly captured and by the two covers included herein. They lay waste to both Siege’s “Drop Dead” and “Protest and Survive” by Discharge. Makkmat have apparently found a home at the middle of the world’s most fucked Venn diagram.
Though the recording is damn near note perfect by genre standards, it was amazingly released as a demo. If this feral opening salvo is any indication, they’re be destroying eardrums for years to come.
Pick up a copy of Makkmat's Beina Brenner on vinyl via Everyday Hate Records.
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