Band:	Rotten Sound
Album:	Apocalypse
Style:	Grindcore
Release date:	March 2023

01. Pacify
02. Equality
03. Sharing
04. Apocalypse
05. Suburban Bliss
06. Renewables
07. Newsflash
08. Digital Bliss
09. True And False
10. Denialist
11. Nothingness
12. Fight Back
13. Patriots
14. Ownership
15. Science
16. Empowered
17. Breach
18. Inflation

Here's a Rotten Soundtrack for the inevitable Apocalypse (which hopefully won't be too soon). Brace yourselves for the incoming impact. It'll all be over in a flash, before you even know what hit you.

I think it's fair to say that there hasn't been a genre quite like grindcore. It was once considered to be the genre that pushed the boundaries more so than any other genre, with ghastly, provoking lyrics, controversial subject matters, and unbearable, intolerable music for easy listeners and mainstream lovers alike. Some songs were so short that you wouldn't even consider them songs at all. Some of us wouldn't have had it any other way, though, and still won't have it any other way now. In fact, this is why grindcore is still going strong over thirty years later.

Of course, leading the new rising generation of extreme punk was the likes of Napalm Death,Terrorizer, and Brutal Truth, as well as many more. Later stages brought bands such as Pig Destroyer and Nasum to the party. However, emerging onto the scene back in 1993 was Finland's Rotten Sound, and although perhaps an overlooked band in comparison to the acts I mentioned, they still undeniably helped contribute towards this nasty, vile, genre. Well, guess what? They're still here, still on the scene, and still grinding away in the same manner that they did during those early 90s.

Rotten Sound are perhaps one of the more consistent grindcore acts around, and have a fairly decent discography behind them, most notably their 2002 release Murderworks and Exit in 2005. Now they bring to you their eighth full-length release Apocalypse. Any different? Well, not exactly, to simply put it short, which Apocalypse certainly is. The album is barely twenty minutes long, with a reasonably substantial eighteen tracks crammed in. It's ferociously fast, ridiculously aggressive, and is structured in such an extremely manic way that it's simply too hard to digest in just one listen. Good news, though: you can repeat this album three times in one hour, if you can stomach it.

The album starts just as you'd expect, with Rotten Sound's typical signature style. This means a high level of ferocity, brought by energizing riffs with a punkish groove, a varied vox of extreme brutality (from hardcore shouts and screams to nasty snarling growls), and of course a competent rhythm section keeping everybody on their toes. This comes from the insane rhythmic drumming which pounds away, accompanied by some pretty badass bass work. From a typical grindcore lovers perspective, what's there not to love? It has it all, however I can't help but feel that this same old formula has run its course, and so has held me back from enjoying this somewhat. Maybe the songwriting is a little too predictable from my personal perspective, but it's likely grinders of the metal world wouldn't care less regardless, and will simply like it for what it is, and that's absolutely fine.

Overall this is a solid performance as always, just don't expect anything other than Rotten Sound's typical grindcore formula, and that's twenty minutes of ferocious mayhem, with an unrelenting brutal flow, and wave upon wave of crazy breakneck, groovy-ass riffing, with pure manic rhythmic beats, and nasty lyrical content.