Grazes - Myths

Grazes on Myspace
Purchase 'Myths' from Holy Roar Records
Co-released with Ebb & Flow Records
2011

No time to fuck about. Hailing from Sheffield, UK, relative young bloods of the Hardcore scene Grazes have hammer-smashed together a fourteen minute opus of uncurtailed aggression and mixed state mania. 'Myths' is their first release on Holy Roar Records - a label notorious for it's heterogeneous smorgasbord of past releases - and quite frankly this seven track blitzkrieg somewhat channels the label's partiality for varied textures and tones. 'Myths' consolidates a foundation of no nonsense Hardcore Punk savageness with various genre signatures found elsewhere along the incestuous tree line of Punk Rock. Arguably, they've pulled off this grand collision to a successful degree.

Track one for instance, 'Intro/Black Death' takes it's time in cooking a nauseous, almost sludgy bassline, eventually rolling into gyrations of 'Conspiring The Go Go'-esque Ampere, and the dynamic switches faster than you can say 'Yorkshire' as 'Drown In The River Styx' announces itself with a ten second drum pattern straight out of the Los Crudos handbook.

The Screamo elements are mercurial, yet they're so blatantly there. You can hear pinches of say, Comadre underpinning 'My Last Day' as it barrel-rolls through bad attitude vocals and noodling guitar cuts. But, at the same time the solid scaffold of this entire release remains devoutly Hardcore in the traditional sense.

The clever misdirection, or rather, deliberate blending of sounds peaks on both 'Rex Anglorum' and 'Observer's Paradox' whereupon the riff-broker - who has so patiently sliced a path of clear cut punk chops up until now - vents a torrent of wavy, possibly Iommi influenced guitar lines. Achievements that Baroness' John Baizley might like to give these four northern scamps a little slap for.

There is a lot to be heard on 'Myths,' a lot of ambition vying for attention, but the entire view manages to keep it's sense of panorama. The result is balanced, quite considered but still merciless as fuck. I think the kind of record that Grazes have put out this year owes an indirect debt of thanks to acts such as Touché Amoré, who have, within the last two years, managed to embolden the fan base for Hardcore thats tactile and clearly accessible without overly sacrificing the sheer fucking chaos that brought us all here in the first place. In short, Hell has come home to Sheffield in 2011.

- Josh