Escuela Grind – DDEEAATTHHMMEETTAALL | EP Review

East coast extreme hardcore collective Escuela Grind round out their trilogy of sub-genre focused releases to pay tribute to their musical influences with the ferocious ode to death metal.

Despite 2023 being an absurdly strong year for death metal as a genre, Escuela Grind are already kicking the doors in for 2024 to ensure that the focus doesn’t start to wane so swiftly. Following on from their 2022 full length album Memory Theatre, DDEEAATTHHMMEETTAALL rounds out the trilogy initially conceptualised with 2020’s Ppoowweerrvviioolleennccee and Ggrriinnddccoorree EPs. The new EP follows a similar trajectory of the band honing in and paying tribute to the specific elements of the extreme sub-genres that make Escuela Grind who they are.

“Ball and Chain” opens up the EP in barbaric fashion, the pummelling chug of the guitars and relentless percussive pounding feeling suitably weighty as the title suggests. Growing in intensity as the song progresses, it’s hard to believe “Ball and Chain” wasn’t initially planned for the EP, as the murderous slab of lower-tempo death metal carnage makes for the perfect opener. Swiftly following it is “Punishment Ritual”, which dials up the pacing from the get go, Katerina Economou’s guttural howls opening the track are like a shotgun to the face and wouldn’t feel out of place on a Cannibal Corpse album. Krissy Morash’s guitar hook leading into the switch up in the bridge is absolutely disgusting, paired with Jesse Adan Fuentes’ explosive blasts push the band to their sonic limit in the best way possible.

Recorded with Will Killingsworth and mixed/mastered by Kurt Ballou, between the two they have more than enough experience with noise, hardcore and death metal to bring out the absolute best from Escuela Grind. Whilst plainly obvious paying tribute to death metal musically, lyrically the band take the gore and violence tropes found strewn throughout the genre and approach them from a decidedly feminine angle, as they described it, without eschewing or shying away from brutal imagery.

“Abyssal Plane” shows off the technicality in the riff work whilst slowing things back down somewhat. The synchronised choppy chord changes with the percussive bells of the ride cymbal oozes classic death metal ferocity. The breakdown halfway through the track is sure to tear mosh pits apart in its abject brutality. Final track “Meat Magnet” features additional vocals from prior tour mate and grindcore legend, Napalm Death‘s Barney Greenway and is as primal and bludgeoning as one would hope, reveling in its instrumental savagery and bellows of its title for an absolute belter of a closer.

Escuela Grind have thrown together a fittingly brutal and monstrous tribute to an influential genre. Showcasing their proficiency on honing into a specific element of their chaotic and violent mish-mash of extreme sounds, this is one hell of a way to kick off 2024 with fourteen minutes of sheer mayhem.