Irritant

I really, really don’t care for grindcore.

A funny thing happened after I put Irritant on my mp3 player, though… Much like its title implies, Irritant found its way under my skin, and I suddenly found myself listening to it far more than I had really expected. For an album featuring only a drummer and a guitarist, with no vocals, Irritant finds a surprising number of ways to maintain my attention.

You see, I’ll Eat Your Face is no mere grindcore band. The band’s grind elements are only part of the equation, supplemented by a hefty dose of weirdness. I’ll Eat Your Face keep to a number of grindcore conventions; only four of the twelve songs here pass the two-minute mark, with ‘Dr. Pancake’s Luxurious Ratskin Housecoat’ topping out at 3:33, making it an epic by grind’s standards. And as you may have guessed by the last statement, the bizarre, hilarious song titles common with the genre are also present.

But what really sets these fools apart is the music. There are plenty of fast-paced grindy moments present, but just as present are slower moments, clean guitars, doomy riffs, and weird interludes. The Boy’s guitar playing is adventurous, switching between song segments like an ADD-addled octopus, aided no doubt by the innovative FLESHTRONIC recording technique. Barrytron’s drumming is equally versatile, following The Boy’s guitar like, well, another ADD-addled octopus. These two make for a fearsome duo, like nothing you’ve ever heard. The lack of any bass in the mix is pretty much unnoticeable, because the guitars pack such a punch.

There may be obvious comparisons to other duos, like Death From Above 1979 and The White Stripes, but I’ll Eat Your Face are a completely different animal. Imagine taking The White Stripes, pumping them full of hallucinogens, and then getting them involved in a car crash, and you may begin to approach I’ll Eat Your Face’s sound. (This would apparently make Barrytron the girl. I’ll let him confirm or deny this.) Even then, I feel like I am falling woefully short of describing just how brilliantly demented this album is. It will blow your mind.

Bottom line, this is one of the best albums I’ve heard all year. And considering that I don’t like grindcore, that makes this doubly impressive. If you aren’t already listening to this album, you need to download it and check it out. Barrytron and The Boy have succeeded in creating something different in metal, and how often does that happen these days?

Originally reviewed for The Number Of The Blog: http://thenumberoftheblog.com/2010/04/20/fucking-metal-album-reviews-ill-eat-your-face-irritant/