On the last new arrivals list, I was raving about the German grind band ATKA and their self-released 3" CD that they had just sent in to Crucial Blast; it's not that easy for me to get excited over a grindcore band nowadays, the majority of new bands that I hear are content to simply ape the classic Earache template, "oldschool revivalism" has been permeating the grind scene for years now, but every once in a while a band will slip through that just completely knocks me on my ass. ATKA is the latest band to do so, and that little 3" disc made me an instant fan with just six minutes of music, blazing epic grindcore that mixed together insane abrupt riff changes and hysterical hyperspeed tempos, huge dissonant noise-rock riffs and brutal gutteral vocals, total punishing grindcore, but what made those six songs so amazing were the strength of the riffs, and the hooks, which were so catchy, especially the last track on the disc which seemed to filter some kind of early 90's indie melodicism through a nuclear strength grind attack without ONCE sounding wimpy. Thats what makes ATKA so great, they're able to employ melody without ever falling into dreaded "emo" territory and come out with grindcore that's insanely catchy and experimental and complex and always crushing.
This split album is the newest release from ATKA, which they share with fellow German grinders Shimetsu. ATKA deliver seven tracks on their side, most of 'em averaging around two minutes each. This stuff is just as amazing as their 3" CD, each song packed with super complex arrangements of hyperspeed blastbeats, angular but catchy riffs, powerful gutteral vocals with TONS of emotion, weird squiggly leads, massive sludgecore riffs like on the beginning of the second track where it sounds like Down for a moment before the band suddenly shifts into a super catchy thrash metal part, then into EPIC grindcore - all in forty-nine seconds! There's over-the-top prog freakouts, Champ-like harmonies, awesome spacey textures, weird electronic glitchery, and one thrash attack after the next, and one song starts off with a metal lick that sounds like the band is going to go into some old school sleaze metal, but then the blastbeats kick in and take the song to a very different place. Another thing about ATKA is that they incorporate some very rocking elements into their sound without sounding at all generic, it's more like hearing Discordance Axis or Brutal Truth unexpectedly mutating into an old school heavy metal hook. Their blastbeats have that weird choppy feel where it sounds like the music is skipping, which also gives this a violently disorienting feel. Seriously, ATKA is one of the best newer grind bands I've heard, and it's probably just a matter of time before these guys are picked up by one of the bigger metal labels. Fans of adventurous grind need to this NOW.
Shimetsu have a lot to live up to after following ATKA, but they do so admirably with a warped deathgrind assault across ten tracks that'll have Gorguts fans drooling. The avant-garde skronk of Gorguts's Obscura is obviously a big influence on Shimetsu's impossibly ultra complex and dissonant avant-death, but there's also some insanely technical Behold...The Arctopus / Necrophagist style progshred in here as well, with the short songs packing in a dizzying amount of atonal dirge, lightspeed fretboard runs, bestial pigbelches trading off with higher pitched squeals, brutal blastbeats and stop/start drumming that gives me a serious case of head-tilt by the fifth track. This is some of the craziest stop/start deathgrind song arrangements to come through here since Decaying Form's Chronicles Of Decimation. I'll definitely be on the lookout for more stuff from Shimetsu after hearing this!
The ATKA/Shimetsu split also has a seriously cool-looking packages for a grindcore LP. Both sides of the jacket feature images of icebergs and clear spot varnish printing, with ATKA's side featuring one of Camille Seaman's awesome images from her Last Iceberg series, and the record comes in a printed inner sleeve. Limited to five hundred copies.