Refusal – Grasp (demo)
As I’ve said before on these (web)pages, an inordinate amount of the Extreme music I enjoy these days hails from Finland, with bands like Maveth, Desolate Shrine, Azaghal, and Rotten Sound constantly reappearing in my cue. Case in point: the roiling Death/grind of Finns Refusal. Harmony Corruption-era Napalm Death-chug collides with the breaks and nod-factor of Nasum’s ‘slower’ moments, leaving enough blood and steel on the roadside to crane even the most desensitized of necks. And while blood and steel themselves warrant a schadenfreude-stare by the casualty vampire living in all of us, Refusal have more to offer than just seatbeltless skull-cracking via instruments. The Barney Greenway-inspired barks of vocalist Niika Lius coupled with the horrified slit-throat backing screams of bassist Timo Pirhonen have a hate-fueled force that, when yoked together as one, drag the mostly mid-paced attack of guitars and drums across the music-scape like sharpened claws through flesh. Refusal’s perspective is the antithesis of say, the aforementioned/recently-reviewed Rotten Sound, as even the blast-beats have a left-too-long-in-the-sun-LP spin to them that, whether intentional or not, adds to the grime of the grind on display here. Sticking points lie solely with the odd ‘Girls! Girls!’ Girls!’ death-chant on ‘Cleaning the Waste’ (unless it’s meant to parody Motley Crue…?) and with the placement of ‘Grip’ as the second track. ‘Grip”s more Thrash-tinged axework would have fared better as a closer, its early inclusion slowing things down a bit much for the album’s intent. Not that you’ll really give a damn anyway, for Timo’s DD Verni-esque bass rankle keeps things appropriately aggressive throughout the carnage even more so on that particular song than elsewhere on the four-song collection. If you like your Death Metal more murky than hammer-smashing and your grindcore more gut-churning than bonesnapping, download your free copy here http://refusalband.com/releases.htm , there’s no excuse not to. Don’t rush, though. Refusal’s last Grasp will hardly be their final one. -Jim
Worm Gear 