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The Best Grindcore Album - Metal Storm Awards 2023
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1.  Rotten Sound - Apocalypse 79
2.  Gridlink - Coronet Juniper 69
3.  Owdwyr - Receptor 41
4.  Japanische Kampfhörspiele - Blaskapelle Bürgermeister Bratwurst Bier Geschenkekorb Bibelstelle Bumskabine Bienensterben Völkermord 38
5.  Gravesend - Gowanus Death Stomp 33
6.  Tithe - Inverse Rapture 13
7.  Outergods - A Kingdom Built Upon The Wreckage Of Heaven 12
  Racetraitor - Creation And The Timeless Order Of Things 12
  Chepang - Swatta 12
  Gendo Ikari - Rokubungi 12
  Cattle Decapitation - Terrasite (write-in vote) 12
Total votes:
345



Chepang - Swatta

Swatta is about three times as long as Chepang’s last album and it’s still within the normal range of a full-length studio album; some things are possible only with grindcore. That ridiculous measurement is not the only such thing, though, so don’t let the statistics get you down: it’s all good ideas filling out the new threads, with Swatta showing as much growth and deviation from Chatta as Chatta did from Dadhelo. The vomitory, spasmodic chaos that forms the basis for Chepang remains, now with discernible melodies – focused and dominant ones – that could feel right at home sitting centerstage in a pop-punk anthem or a metalgaze memory. Chepang already had the chops to make jazzy grindcore succeed, and now as they push out into the realms of quiet soundscapes and happy-go-lucky jams, assisted by a crazy stable of guests including Colin Marston, Dave Witte, and half of Gridlink, they are becoming capable of taking on you on genuine emotional journeys through grindcore.

Bandcamp / YouTube (full album playlist)

Gendo Ikari - Rokubungi

Are you immensely disappointed in your son and in need of something to break stuff to? Have you become embittered by the death of your wife, twisted into a perverse mirror image of the brilliant scientist you used to be, and unable to feel any pleasure but the screaming, toneless jackhammering of brutal riffage? Would you literally [classified] in order to [classified] out of [classified] and then use your stupid disappointing son to [classified], thus bringing about [classified], and now you need some killer tunes that scream "PATTERN BLUE"? Then it’s time for you to check out Gendo Ikari, who have cursed themselves forever to be described only in reference to Neon Genesis Evangelion but nonetheless excel in an entirely unrelated class of apocalyptic shuffle. Rokubungi is a heavy and hardcore debut filled with bass-heavy rumbling and atonal spleen that will leave you flattened under a Fourth Impact.

Bandcamp / YouTube (full album playlist)

Gravesend - Gowanus Death Stomp

Introducing US grindcore act Gravesend's sophomore release, appropriately titled Gowanus Death Stomp: the violent cover art, album title, and outrageous track titles alone should paint a vivid picture of what to expect from this next-level brutal grindcore monstrosity. This is blackened grindcore in its most malicious and aggressive form, offering crazy breakneck groovy riffs, insane rhythmic drumming beats, manic bass lines, ferocious shredding solos, and punkish shrieks and shouts whilst throwing in a few surprises along the way. Listen with care and tread with caution (and perhaps not on a priest's face, as the cover depicts).

Bandcamp / YouTube (full album stream)

›› Full review...

Gridlink - Coronet Juniper

Grindcore takes a lot of ribbing for its comically short duration, but those minutes add up to hours pretty quickly when you find something that deserves a couple dozen consecutive replays. Gridlink exited stage left after their career met a blindingly technical and melodic climax in Longhena, and somehow they topped that landmark as soon as they came back from a decade's hiatus. "Songwriting" is a word that Gridlink takes very seriously, no matter what preconceptions you may have about how moot such extreme speed renders it: Takafumi Matsubara is quite possibly the most unique guitarist in the whole genre thanks to his application of tech death, jazz, sludge, and basically anything that'll supply an unprecedented degree of compositional sophistication and melody. The leads and riffs and warp-speed shifts graft a layer of sci-fi fascination onto Bryan Fajardo's jackhammering drums and Jon Chang's ear-splitting shrieks. Coronet Juniper may last only 19 minutes, but good luck spending only 19 minutes on it.

Bandcamp / YouTube (full album stream)

›› Full review...

Japanische Kampfhörspiele - Blaskapelle Bürgermeister Bratwurst Bier Geschenkekorb Bibelstelle Bumskabine Bienensterben Völkermord

With their 11th release, JaKa continue with their reliable and entertaining grindpunk style, providing damning criticism of the consumerism, hypocrisy, wastefulness, and sloth-like attitude that increasingly pervade first-world civilization. These condemnations are told via their signature mix of rough hardcore shouts, ghoulish rasps, and demonic growls. Instrumentally, they deliver a wild variety of tight, razor-sharp, distorted guitar riffs contrasted by majestic melodies, Brazilian funk, electronic beats, and droning noise. Now, add some audio samples of German commercials and news programs on top of all that, and you get an idea of JaKa's insane patchwork of music.

Bandcamp / YouTube (full album playlist)

›› Full review...

Outergods - A Kingdom Built Upon The Wreckage Of Heaven

Freshly formed, and freshly onto the Prosthetic Records roster, come Outergods, formed by half of Raised By Owls plus members of Merciless Terror and Evil Scarecrow. Like Raised By Owls, Outergods make grindcore a bit differently; A Kingdom Built Upon The Wreckage Of Heaven draws from both black and death metal, fluctuating between old-school death metal influences and modern grindcore fury with some oddball dissonance and frigid black metal tones thrown into the equation. Capped off with frenzied blackened shrieks, Outergods combine the nastiness of several extreme metal genres to create something even nastier.

Bandcamp / YouTube (full album stream)

Owdwyr - Receptor

Grindcore has a tendency to pigeonhole artists, so it’s always exciting to see acts within the genre being adventurous, and no one could accuse Owdwyr of playing it safe on their debut album, Receptor. With a sound based on grindcore and tech-death while being too ambiguous to categorize as deathgrind, Receptor spans everything from blistering assaults through to maddening technicality and vicious beatdowns while also throwing in curveballs such as electronics, saxophone solos, melodic shredding, and, most shockingly of all, classical orchestrations. Featuring a litany of all-star extreme metal drummers recruited to smash out endless blast beats, Receptor is so much more sophisticated and unexpected than one could possibly believe without listening to it.

Bandcamp / YouTube (full album playlist)

›› Full review...

Racetraitor - Creation And The Timeless Order Of Things

Late-'90s hardcore act Racetraitor caused quite a stir, both for their radical politics and for their prototypical integration of extreme metal into hardcore, before disappearing for nearly 2 decades. The decline of Western civilization inspired a reunion, and two albums in, Racetraitor’s post-reformation music remains as forward-thinking as their earlier work; right from the off, Creation And The Timeless Order Of Things serves up a surprise by weaving Middle Eastern instrumentation into metallic hardcore abrasion. From that point on, the band spans grindcore, hardcore, and extreme metal in unpredictable and innovative ways, and the resulting album is as progressive from a musical standpoint as it is lyrically.

Bandcamp / YouTube (full album playlist)

Rotten Sound - Apocalypse

If the sound was rotten to begin with, time can't have much of an effect on it. If anything, it helps. Seven years after their previous album, a full three decades after their formation, Rotten Sound dropped one of their most furious and vicious records to date. In case you haven't looked out your window in the past... forever, there's been an apocalypse going on. Leave it to a grindcore band to summarize that in only 20 minutes, and leave it to Rotten Sound to leave peers young and old alike withering in the dust of their reckless charge. Apocalypse is everything you need to know about Rotten Sound (and about this genre): it is pure bludgeoning noise that colors all the way outside the lines and won't let up until either you or it is dead.

Bandcamp / YouTube (full album stream)

Tithe - Inverse Rapture

The general idea we have of grindcore is that of a fast, punky genre whose push to the extreme in that direction can make it noisy and nigh incomprehensible. Tithe take that idea and apply all the punky incomprehensibility and intensity to death-doom, in the meantime applying a dash of black metal melodicism, sludge metal punch, and a sense of ominous atmosphere, with some melodies and solos being surprisingly grounded for how unruly the sound as a whole is. And yet, that's the charm. It's chaotic noise that steps out of line only when the band lets it. And Tithe harness that noise.

Bandcamp / YouTube (full album stream)