It’s been a real pleasure for me recently to delve deeper into my local metal scene and discover that the Australian underground has a lot of fantastic Grind to offer up. What’s really awesome about it is that most of the bands I’ve discovered have really got their own sound, despite Grind being generally perceived as a one-note genre. It’s amazing to learn that within a style of music that promises little to no reward for its purveyors, so many still strive for a sound that isn’t just a dime a dozen. The Day Everything Became Nothing are a case in point – these guys have a sound that is unlike any of their Aussie counterparts. Invention : Destruction, their second of three full-lengths (so far) is a pretty good place to start.

The Day Everything Became Nothing describe themselves as Goregrind, which I suppose is accurate enough given their always visceral lyrical matter. That said, if I had to label their genre myself I would probably call it something like Sludgegrind, because I find that for a couple of reasons the sound is not what I might normally associate with Grindcore. First of all, the guitars are excessively down-tuned to the point of being so dense and sludgy that the riffs they play have none of the sharpness you would expect to hear from this genre. I mean, this sound is so bottom heavy you can barely believe it. Second of all, and this is big one, the songs they play are pretty damn slow. Now, of course I don’t mean they’re slow like a Doom Metal act, but these are definitely not the sort of tempos you often hear in Grind. Even the fastest songs on this album are moving at a snail’s pace compared to your average Pig Destroyer or Nasum track. The music still qualifies as Grind because compositionally it inhabits a place that’s not quite Hardcore and not quite Death Metal, but features elements of both. I think Sludgegrind actually describes it pretty well.

The songs aren’t half bad either. As I said, the riffs aren’t exactly crystal clear in terms of audibility, but amazingly, these guys make it work. They achieve this by whipping their filthy, grimy sound into some pretty sick, mid-tempo grooves that should keep your head nodding throughout the album. As you might expect from this description blast beats are a little more scarce than usual for this kind of music but they do feature. The final element of their sound is the vocals and this might be a sticking point for some because for the most part, Tony Forde’s vocals are very heavily pitch-shifted. The approach has definite merits, since the completely inhuman gurgle that results is a perfect match for the dirty sound they are cultivating. On the other hand, it does have a way of feeling a little artificial.

If you’re into Grind, The Day Everything Became Nothing are worth checking out and this is good album to start with. Their songs aren’t as memorable as some other acts, but they do have a pretty interesting, if not completely unique kind of sound. The grooves they lay out on this album can be enticing, but mostly in small doses. I do want to briefly mention the song titles on Invention : Destruction which are all single words using violent verbs. It's a cute touch.