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O.L.D. / Assück > Assück / O.L.D. > Reviews
O.L.D. / Assück - Assück / O.L.D.

It was sweet but nothing more - 60%

morbert, November 10th, 2008

Assück

I’m going to be honest here. The only reason for me to review the Assück side is because I want to review the O.L.D. side of this 1990 split EP. So don’t hit my mother if I don’t turn out to be an Assück fan boy…

I was a sucker for old grindcore. I still am. I will always have a soft spot for it. Unequalled energy and idealism. Who cared if a band could actually play or not. I just love it. But what I always disliked is grindcore sounding too polished and contrived. The only exception was Terrorizer. They were extremely tight, their album sounded incredibly proffessional but still it was furious and brutal enough to convince an arrogant critical bastard like me.

I’m having difficulties describing why I actually never thought of Assück as a memorable grindcore band from the late eighties/early nineties. Everyone knew their name and they actually did everything right. Never too tight nor too sloppy. Heavy sound. You name it. It’s there. Yet still they didn’t do it for me. The vocals? Could be. With this music I either like hardcore punk vocals or over the top grunting while eating a microphone. Maybe Assücks vocals were too much mainstream death metal for me? Who knows. But I just think it’s the compositons. Their riffs are not to-the-point enough, too death-metalish if you want. And their songs just aren’t catchy enough compared to contemporary competition.

When I listen to these songs I just think “yes, they’re doing it right” but still I forget about this group within a few seconds. They’re just missing the magic touch I guess…

O.L.D.

What do you get when a band, who are in the middle of evolving from pubescent grindcore into arthouse industrial noise, decide to release three songs in the middle of the process…. “Rape, Carve , Smoke”, “Urine Love”, and “GRRRAMPS”!

Let me get to the point: I wish the band had recorded and released an album full of this! Apart from the interesting blending of styles, the typical guitar riffs and vocals have always been the O.L.D. trademark. This time the newly introduced drumcomputer does the honours instead of Ralph Pimentel and the band immediately sounds 100% tighter and actually more aggressive.

The raging drums, the chorus-laden urban spaceman guitars by James Plotkin and Alan Dubins manic screaming. Changes going from ultra fast polka beats with thrash metal riffs into jazzy yet very heavy industrial breakdowns with eerie haging notes or disharmonic melodies yet never sounding like what nowerdays people would call technogrind, mathcore or whatever. A unique sound of their own which within a year evolved into the weirdness that would be Lo flux Tube.

Yes, I wish they’d made an album full of this stuff in 1990.