Extinction of Humanity

Great band name. What implies heaviness more than machinery used to mince history’s largest mammal? Rather unhelpfully, where they are supposed to list their influences on their myspace page, they just write “an enormous door slamming in the depths of hell”. Certainly, they have a way of talking metal. The other thing you notice about this ‘album’ is that it is short- very short, in fact, at 21 minutes long. Thus, I expect this to be a wild ride; the kind that doesn’t need half an hour to grind you down in.

And an energetic trip it is, too- although no more so than, say, early Swede bands like Dismember, or Entombed, the scene from where they seem to draw most influence. This was released on vinyl and cassette by Cyclopean records before coming to CD on Relapse, and the promo stuff for both seems undecided as to how precisely to describe this (the former says it’s “early 90s death metal” while the latter says it’s hardcore). There shouldn’t need to be much confusion, as it’s remarkably simple music. It’s death metal, olden-days Swede-style; a bit like Left Hand Path with a beefier production job. Chris Ulsh’s vocals are definitely close to L.G.’s, but it doesn’t have the same trebly, screeching intensity. Instead, there is more of a low-pitched, punkish swing to it that probably betrays the band’s apparent hardcore influence- or maybe an affinity for Nihilist. Mammoth Grinder doesn’t have the same crusty, doomy, oppressive groove as that band, though, being more of a well-oiled pummelling machine.

Unfortunately it’s not really as interesting as the aforementioned Euros. Its tonal palette gets a little bit monochromatic; there are very few solos, and whilst there are some nice, dramatic accelerations from hardcore-influenced pounding to violent tremolo riffing and back again, you don’t really feel like you are being thrown from idea to idea in any unpredictable or organic way. The closest you come to surprises are the sludgy, low-fi bass thuds that surface occasionally in Sentenced to Hell, which build into genuinely powerful, doomy grooves.

Definitely a stretch to call this exciting, but it is a pretty polished, short sharp death metal shock. There are some good riffs to be found, although the album does rush by without leaving a vast impression.