MACHINES OF GRIND 04.27.10

Under the name of “Machines of Grind” a tour with three most beast groups as headliners came to Spain: THE RED CHORD, ROTTEN SOUND, ABORTED and the guests THOSE WHO LIE BENEATH. Nature did not want TRC or TWLB to continue their tour, with the explosion of the Eyjafjalla volcano. Still, it was decided to continue with the tour landing on Tuesday April 27 in Barcelona.

It was not known with certainty who would be the new groups that would replace the Americans. I got to the room just at the end of BLOQ, in charge of opening the night. I did not know of their existence, and from what we can hear on their MySpace they offer a mixture of very hardcore Death Metal, a style that was lost from the poster due to the fall of the two groups mentioned above. They are a recently formed group that, from what several attendees told me, were performing for the first time. If it really is, how lucky are some!

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The two headliners rotated their positions throughout the tour, and in Barcelona it was ROTTEN SOUND's turn to be in charge of starting the demolition. I have seen Finns on several occasions, both in theaters and at festivals, they always embroider it and this occasion was not going to be the exception. They started with “Slay” and went through parts of their discography for 45 minutes, including their recent EP 'Napalm' in which they cover the parents of Grind NAPALM DEATH. The hall would not have more than 80 people, all very cold, and although the group of good concerts are of these that with the support of the public they grow. Three days later and at the Neurotic Deathfest festival in Tilburg (The Netherlands) competing with NAPALM DEATH on the main stage and the room packed, their performance was much better, for example. Songs like "Days To Kill", "Void", "Insects", "Simplicity", "Blind", "Decay" and "Burden" (a classic in their concerts) were the ones that had the best repercussion, and that is their album 'Exit' continues to be one of the pillars in their career and the one that is best accepted live, although on this tour they have focused more on their latest full-length 'Cycles'. As always, they offered us forcefulness, brutality, solidity and destroyed our eardrums as only they know.

Time to ABORTED. Belgians had not set foot in Spanish for years, a great incentive to attend their live show, but also all the line-up they presented was renewed, except for the leader and singer Sven “Svencho” from Caluwé. Since 2008 they haven't released a full length, but their recent EP 'Coronary Reconstruction' has been the perfect excuse to go on tour. The performances of the headliners paid tribute to the name that leads this tour: on the one hand, the Finns, without being so moved on stage, make up for this "defect" with vocal technique and presence; instead ABORTED are completely madness on stage. "From A Trepid Whiff", "Meticulous Invagination", "The Saw And The Carnage Done", "Blood Fixing The Bled", "Dead Wreckoning" sounded sublime, with great complicity on the part of the group and what makes them more spectacular, as I mentioned above: the frontman Svencho, speechless.

At 11:00 pm, the renowned “Fuck The Volcano Tour” ended. Despite being a great night of the most extreme metal, we were left with a bit of a bad taste in our mouths due to the short time of the groups' performance, although on the other hand it is replaced by being able to go home earlier on a weekday. The other bitter side was the attendance, barely passing 100 people. I don't know if it was because of the number of people from Barcelona who would be at the Neurotic Deathfest three days later, being able to enjoy the headliners, or if the suspension of THE RED CHORD was the real cause, but I was surprised by the low attendance. It is also true that ROTTEN SOUND are not a very well known group in Spain, and perhaps just ABORTED as headliners is not enough to fill a room like [2] Apolo.

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Whatever the reason, I am sorry for those who finally decided not to attend because they missed a great night of Grindcore in its purest form.

Photographs and text by Xènia Senserrich