Band:	Leng Tch'e
Album:	Hypomanic
Style:	Grindcore
Release date:	May 2010

01. Wirehead Imbeciles
02. A.Men
03. The Stockholm Malevolence Project
04. World State Abomination
05. Refined Torture
06. Misleading Innuendos
07. Obiter Dicta
08. Death's Head Cockroach
09. Totalitarian
10. Anthropocentric Suicide
11. Silence Is Better Than Unmeaning Words
12. Violence Does Even Justice
13. Corrosive Rotgut
14. Perfervid Odysse

Leng Tch'e is a band that plays some quite passable and pleasant grindcore that doesn't really excel at anything. Hypomanic is more of the same slightly above-average grind-death with a hardcore edge from these Belgian musicians.

Stylistically, Leng Tch'e currently sounds a whole lot like Napalm Death, an influence confirmed by the band with the inclusion of one Barney Greenway on guest vocals in the track "Totalitarian". This is certainly not the only track where Napalm Death is echoed though since the whole album contains plenty of hero worship. This is, of course, Leng Tch'e's biggest problem too - they are followers, not leaders. Besides the traditionalist grind, there are some detours into crazier Cephalic Carnage territory; however, Leng Tch'e is very, very mediocre. The music here doesn't impress me with anything, it just sort of rumbles along, throwing grind quotations at me and not being very threatening. This is a vanilla release.

The speed, catchiness and brutality of this release are all nothing to write home about - they are average. There might be some more intriguing riffs and ideas here in tracks like "Death's Head Cockroach" and "Anthropocentric Suicide" but they tend to be very subdued and unassuming, a strange tactic for a grindcore band. This is a genre filled with bands that all do pretty much exactly the same thing so there is no place for subtlety here. Nevertheless, Leng Tch'e don't really seem to aspire to reach those higher echelons of creativity.

But then again... with all of this said, lets take a step back and look at the whole scene here. Grindcore these days is littered with shit releases. Very little stands out as in any way creative, intelligent or enjoyable. Two other albums that I have in my review queue right now, Tentacles and Artillery Swarm, are pure crap compared to Leng Tch'e and don't even get me started on the deluge of shit that is the so called 'slam death' scene. On the other hand, Leng Tch'e is at least pretty passable and enjoyable. Hypomanic might be a vanilla release but let's face it - vanilla is better than shit.