Grinder - Nothing is Sacred (1991)

Once again, Germans Grinder are responsible for an album that looks nothing like it sounds, and while I can admire the choice in cover art and artists, it only contributes to the disenchantment when I am faced with the band's actual musical content. One might expect maniacal, corpse hacking death metal or psychotic, swamp stalking thrash from the looks of Nothing is Sacred, but the reveal is sadly something else entirely: a drag, stubborn and unimpressive in every category, and by comparison it makes even its average elder siblings shine. The band had somehow culled enough interest to carry them onto the ailing Noise Records roster of the 90s, but this incline in visibility was married to a decline in quality.

The "Drifting for 99 Seconds" intro paints acoustic guitars and subtle synth atmosphere into what might be the perfect setup for something grand, but all potential and momentum is lost when the "Hymn for the Isolated", a boring Sacred Reich-a-like with a big bass tone and no decent riffs anywhere to be found. Adrian Hahn had always sounded like Phil Rind a little, but here it's just too close, and the rappy, hardcore shouting of the backing vox in the verse only adds to the puerile street decay. Other tracks like "The Spirit of Violence" and "Superior Being" offer slightly more interesting guitars, but the same sort of vocals, melodic and bludgeoning along the music like a 300 pound strongman trying to pick flowers on his day off. Where the album diverts from this formula, like the snarky Ozzy-like spin on the vocals of the more doomed "None of the Brighter Days", the contents don't get much better (though there is a nice lead sequence tucked in there). "Pavement Tango" is completely terrible, basically a bad bouncy rock song with...Sacred Reich vocals...the worst song in all this band's career.

There are no saving graces here. Even the more straight up speed/thrash fare like "NME" is pretty weak, and I really question how this wound up on a label which at some point had an immense knack for reaping talent. The 1st EP had a few worthwhile trips into acceptable writing, but they seem to have been exhausted there. The curious qualities of Dead End are abandoned, and the album is ultimately a sodden mire from which anyone would desire being hacked up with a hatchet to escape. It bears a similar value to another 1991 flop, Cyclone Temple's I Hate Therefor I Am, only at least here there were no real expectations of anything above average.

Verdict: Fail [3.75/10] (daddy's mistreatin' children)

Grinder - The 1st EP (1990)

It doesn't look like much, but Grinder's 1st EP was ironically their last release with No Remorse Records before signing over to Noise Records for the incredibly dull 3rd full-length, Nothing is Sacred. It's similar to a lot of other short form thrash releases of the time: a few new studio tracks and some live material prescribed as a bonus. Strangely, Grinder have never really felt as 'alive' as they do on this album. Though Adrian Hahn's vocals and the force of the riffs are highly reminiscent of Arizona thrashers Flotsam & Jetsam, they distinguish themselves cleanly from the rest of the German thrash scene, and there's a lot of undeniable energy here that would have been great could it have persisted through a full length.

"Reeling on the Edge" is a bit misleading, sort of an eerie ska/metal piece with dopey sounding, rapped lyrics that remind me of Run DMC, or Phil Rind on the crappy Sacred Reich funk song "31 Flavors". At least until :45 in when it becomes a pure thrust of choppy speed/thrash and the vocals assume their Eric A.K. stance. Sadly, the ska shit returns in the next verse, so ultimately all the good parts are wasted. Not the case for "Incarnation Off" and "Truth in the Hands of Judas", which are both well written if not highly memorable thrashers that I honestly prefer to anything found on their second album, Dead End. The dense guitars, intensifying vocals and wild leads drive them over the brink of mediocrity, and I like the well plotted chorus of the latter.

As for the live material, you've got "Just Another Scar" from Dead End, and "Dawn for the Living" and "F.O.A.D." from the debut album. The quality of the sound here is average, but at least it's bright and clear enough to do justice to the songs. "F.O.A.D" is just as dumb as it was on Dawn for the Living, but the other tracks show that the band might have been even more fun live than in the studio. I can imagine The 1st EP would have been favorable for the fans, as it shows the band at their peak of energy, but there are really only two songs here worth hearing, and the rest can kindly fuck off.

Verdict: Indifference [5/10]

Grinder - Dead End (1989)

Perhaps I wasn't the only one fooled by the cover art into thinking that Grinder had transformed somehow into an early death metal band, but that's just the cover art, and the actual audio content is still very much thrash metal. The production here had improved leaps and bounds over the previous Dawn for the Living, and the band were writing in a more spacious, expansive tone, but despite the few moments of truly interesting music offered through Dead End, the album becomes a stunted bore, with Arizona styled vocals (half Phil Rind of Sacred Reich, half Eric A.K. of Flotsam & Jetsam) that offer a little more melody than the usual German thrashers, but lack all of the blazing, venomous charm of their peers.

A song like "Dead End" really represents my feelings about the album. It opens as incredibly generic thrash with no guitars worth a damn, then transforms into this schizoid landscape in which the band experiment with mood, eventually upscaling to fast as balls speed/thrash with ripping solos. Despite the band's obvious level of competence in its craft, the song is at best an uneven, forgettable assault arriving in a time of far better options. The opener "Agent Orange" is simply not as good as Sodom's song/album of the same type, but the intro that sets up the surge of belligerent riffing is well done, and the verse riffs aren't bad. The band utilizes a lot of melody in "Total Control" and "Why", almost attempting to bridge into a progressive/thrash terrain, but sadly, despite the good drumming and occasionally well plotted melodies, they are not interesting.

"Train Raid" is even worse, a spastic blues/punk piece that doesn't mesh well with the album, and the neo-classical gone bounce thrash of "Inside" almost gimps itself. Had Dead End been gifted with more straight forward fare ala the pickup of "Agent Orange" or "Just Another Scar", then it might have gotten by on its sheer good looks, but as it stands, it's yet another example of those records that drift off into the spark of their imagination without producing a theory or relativity or any other worthwhile innovation. 'Proficient' and 'expansive' are words I would use to expand Grinder as they cycled through the three albums of their career (before mutating into the power metal band Capricorn), but 'quality' is one descriptor that eludes them.

Verdict: Indifference [6.25/10] (invisible in the streets)

Grinder - Dawn for the Living (1988)

It's understandable that the band name Grinder might confuse a few people, because this is in no shape or form related to grind music. Not that the cover to Dawn for the Living implies anything of the sort, or that the name is unfitting for a run of the mill thrash act, but people tend to see the forest for the trees. Arriving perhaps a year or two late to the label game, Grinder released a few average demos in the mid 80s that got them a gig with No Remorse, and hooked a personal favorite producer of mine (Kalle Trapp) to assist in their debut. It was a good choice, because Dawn for the Living has a nice, speedy sound to it with rugged guitars and well mixed vocals, but that sadly doesn't improve the overall quality of the music.

Grinder sounded very similar to other thrash/speed metal bands of their day. Certainly you will hear some Destruction, Sodom and Vendetta here, especially the first few tracks, which blaze along with some measure of promise, but the difference is made in the vocals of Adrian Hahn, which had a meatier tone closer to Sacred Reich or Hallows Eve than the vicious, heavily accented sneering so often associated with the Germans. I like his style a lot in the first track "Obsession", where the backing vocals do a great job supporting him, but the interest does wane after a time, because the band always seems like they're right at the precipice of crafting a good song, and then they back off. "Sinners Exile", "Frenzied Hatred" and "Dying Flesh" all create a good burst of atmosphere (the clean guitar/lead intro to "Frenzied Hatred" is nice), but never deliver the killer hooks or chorus parts. "Delirium" and "Traitor" are two of the better cuts, but they're delegated to the end of the album, before the goofy Nirvana-meets-punk metal of "F.O.A.D." and then a bonus live version of "Traitor", which adds no value whatsoever.

Wrench its contents tightly enough, and you may squeeze some enjoyment out of this debut, but there's just not a single song here you want to scream over or immediately replay. It's not an unpleasant 30-34 minutes (exempting "F.O.A.D." and the live), but neither is it worth choosing over any of a dozen better German bands at the time. You'd be a lot better off with Tankard's amazing hangover blitz The Morning After, or Vendetta's Brain Damage, or any of the kick ass albums coming out in 1988 all over the world. That said, Dawn for the Living remains the best effort of Grinder; their later albums are more spacious, mellowed out and take unnecessary risks that often render them unlistenable (yeah, worse than "F.O.A.D."), so if you're going to check the band out, certainly aim for "Obsession" or "Traitor".

Verdict: Indifference [6.75/10] (soon the world will know)