There are two things (amongst many) I'm a real sucker for. Scandinavia and grindcore. For fuck sake, how much good music can come out of such sparsely populated places? And when it comes to grind, at the moment Finland's Rotten Sound seem to be right on the fucking money, and then some.

Taking the classic Stockholm double distortion death metal sound and trebling the bpm this album will grind you into submission before it slows down a touch and a Left Hand Path shaped bullet hits you between the eyes. Riding on the momentum of last year's astonishing 'Napalm' EP, 'Cursed' offers up 16 tracks grouped into six sections: Egotism, Vanity, Coercion, Vengeance, Exploitation and Fear.

You get the raging, brooding menace of 'Declare' mixed up with the face-melting riffage of 'Addict' and you're on a winner; the latter finishing with a particularly blistering, blast-beat race to the finish. 'Ritual' will have you headbanging like a motherfucker before is slows down into a doomy groove, before again blasting itself to holy shit.

To lend descriptions to many of these tracks is to pay them a disservice, as at times words can't really do justice to the sheer unrelenting brutality (the real shit, not generic open string chugging done by fop-fringed scenesters). Every time I review this lot I seem to draw the same comparisons -Nasum and Entombed i.e. the fucking kings of this stuff. And it's fair to say that Rotten Sound are worthy heirs to the throne.

Fucking GRIIIINNNDDDDD!!!!!

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