Review - Blister Unit (Part 2) and some free music by me

Blister Unit
Dengar Demo
Split w/ Bruxism

This is the second part of my attempt to catch up on all the awesome Blister Unit music I missed over the last few months.

Firstly, the Dengar demo, which the band's Bandcamp page says is their second demo - recorded in 2010 but not released on Bandcamp until June this year - and it's a very different beast from their first. While A Storm Of Corpses And Fire was standard, competently-executed grindcore, the Dengar demo is much, much bassier, more powerviolence-y, and that is a very good thing. The songs are considerably shorter - not one over one minute forty - and they all foreground the bass, to the point where the guitar is relegated to the background. That focus on the bass gives the songs a low-end heaviness and brutality that was slightly lacking on the previous demo, and it also provides that same adrenaline rush that would later make Christ Ape such an engaging record. I can't find a download button anywhere, but you should definitely listen to this one.

Rating: 9/10

Finally, there are four tracks available from the band's split with Bruxism, whose name apparently refers to an excessive grinding of the teeth (excesive grinding - geddit?). Once again, the tracks are short, the longest being one minute and forty two seconds, but in contrast to the Dengar demo the band stick more to the treble end of things; the guitars cut like razors and the vocals sound slightly higher-pitched, while the bass sits in the background, providing a solid, er, base for the songs. This is a damn good set of songs - they hit fast and hard, and quit before you have time to acclimatise. I still prefer the Dengar demo, but these tracks are well worth the five minutes it will take to listen to them.

Rating: 7/10

Free music

Lastly, here's a new track from yours truly - it's off my upcoming album Fireworks.

https://georgejones1.bandcamp.com/

Review - Blister Unit (part 1)

Blister Unit
Split w/ Cybearg
A Storm of Corpses and Fire demo

Blister Unit are a band I first came across back in March, when I found their second album, Christ Ape, on Bandcamp. They blew me away, and the album ended up in my top 5 albums of the year so far. After that, though, I kind of forgot about them, until yesterday evening, when I gave their Bandcamp page another look and found that they've a veritable smorgasbord of new material available. So, in the first part of a two-part post, I'm attempting to catch up on what I've missed.

Firstly, three tracks from an upcoming split with a one-man band called Cybearg, which apparently will be coming out soon. I've got to be honest - I found these three tracks a little lacklustre. There's nothing especially wrong with them, but there's nothing especially right with them either (apart from the growls which are fantastic). It's just the same, garden-variety grindcore that hundreds of other bands play just as well.I'm sure all three of these songs would absolutely slay live, but on record they just don;t have that immediacy, that sudden rush of adrenaline that Christ Ape does. Where Christ Ape grabbed you by the scruff of the neck and dragged you along in its wake, these three songs seem content to ask you politely if you;d come with them.

Rating: 4/10

Fortunately, A Storm of Corpses and Fire is a different story. It starts off just as uninspiringly as the split, but halfway through first track The Alchemist, something clicks, and they become recognisable as the band who made Christ Ape. It's not a perfect record - it's clear that this is a first demo - but it's a good one. It's fast, relentless and heavy as balls, particularly on standout track Endor Apocalypse. My one criticism would be that the samples really don;t need to be there.

Rating: 7/10