These weren't cheap, but we scored some copies of this super-limited (less than 500 pressed, apparently) German import LP release of the now classic
Agoraphobic Nosebleed mini-album Honky Reduction that came out at the end of last year. Formed by guitarist/bassist/drum machine programmer Scott
Hull (who you probably also know from Pig Destroyer, and maybe even his harsh noise project Japanese Torture Comedy Hour) and vokillist/noisician Jay
Randall, Agoraphobic Nosebleed blasted into the grey matter of grind nuts everywhere when the nineteen-minute, twenty-six song CD was released in 1998. This
stuff was over the top when it came out- an onslaught of transgressive, misanthropic hallucinations mixed together with Jay's harsh vocals, insanely fast
drum machine blastbeats that would contort and warp into rhythmic patterns that no human drummer could possibly replicate, blasts of scathing
electronic noise, and Scott's crushing, complex grind riffage, all wrapped up in short, compressed songs that usually barely break the minute mark. Jay's
lyrics and song titles lean towards the confrontational and disturbing, with songs like "The Withering Of Skin", "LIves Ruined Through Sex", "Clawhammer And
A Ether Rag", and "Her Despair Reeks Of Alchohol" skulking the darkest recesses of the human condition, but conveyed through weird lyrics that address drug
conspiracies, consumerism, homophobia, and terrorism in surrealistic eruptions of profanity. On one hand, Honky Reduction is fucking hilarious, in a
crackpot, drug-addled way. Just look at the album cover (a 60's era blonde serving up sides of beef in some nightmarish butcher shop) and the rest of the
deranged, thoroughly un-PC imagery that is found throughout the album sleeve, or follow the lyrics, which are about as pitch-black as humor can get. The
negativity and the sheer brutality of the music is so intense, though, that there's no denying that these cats are dead fucking serious about the grind. No
joke band, here, no matter how freaked out their imagery gets. It's a disorientating grind album from one of my favorite grind bands ever, a bestial assault
all the way up to the Bastard Noise-inspired space noise jam that closes the album.
What will no doubt seal the deal for diehard Agoraphobic Nosebleed fans is the bonus 7" that R.S.R. packaged with this LP. Titled The Glue That Binds
Us, this EP comes in it's own full color jacket, and features thirteen songs of it's own, ten originals and three mind melting covers of Corrosion Of
Conformity ("Hungry Child", my favorite C.O.C. song of all time !!!) and DRI ("I'd Rather Be Sleeping" and "I Don't Need Society"). Not just that, but all of
the tracks on this EP sound like they had been recorded super hot and in the red, the already-caustic grindcore made all the more corrosive by piling on a
thick sheen of white noise and distortion. Awesome.