Good.

The Sawtooth Grin

Good. is the first new batch of material from mathcore and grindcore outfit The Sawtooth Grin since 2004. And, there's not really much I can say about it except that as far as really chaotic, technical metal music goes, this is perhaps my favourite release of the year. They stitch together so many dizzying passages of noodly, atonal guitars, provided by Jason Springman, and relentless, shrill shrieks from Rich Lombardi. Joining in the fray for this record though is one of my all-time favourite drummers, Jon Karel (former member of The Number Twelve Looks Like You and Horse the Band). While drums in this style of music can often be described simply with an image of a wacky waving inflatable tube man, you can always count on Karel to bring control, laser-focused precision, and a great deal of feel to his performances. Now chaos like this needs exceptional production in order to contain all the little details and thankfully this record has that. It's really hard to get into these songs on a macro level with the frequent rhythmic and melodic switch-ups, but at the very least the crisp, clear production allows you to pull apart each element at any given moment.

The drawback with these records is that they do tend to be quite one-note, and this record does suffer a little from that. A few songs perhaps feature a few more stand out guitar licks or a really neat drum technique allowing them to stick out a little more than others. But what I will give this record is that it's nine tracks, twenty-two minutes long, and it is pretty thrilling for it's entire runtime. It's not like you really have time to get tired of it. Perhaps the only major complaint I have is that the closing track, So Long, Dear Bellows is perhaps not the most apt finish. It's kind of a dark ambient composition with some foreboding accordion, some digital artifacts, a lawn sprinkler, and a monster truck announcer delivering an off-putting mantra. Maybe it would have served the album better if it was placed in the middle to give us a bit of a breather. As I said before though, I'm still confident this is the best chaotic mathcore album of the year despite my slight grievances. Plus it has quite possibly my favourite album cover of the year as well. I would highly recommend this one if this is the sort of thing that appeals to you.