Here we have a double dose of Swedish grinding insanity. With the departure of Nasum from the Swedish underground due to the untimely demise of Mieszko Talarczyk, there has been an increase in bands trying to fill Nasum’s shoes in Swedish undergrind. Two of the most promising are Afgrund and Relevant Few and both acts flex their grinding muscle on this 16 track split effort.

Afgrund start things off with 9 tracks of blistering high-paced blasting shrieking shredding grindcore. The band’s style and sound are very reminiscent of later blasting Nasum material as well as fellow Swedes Gadget. The songs are generally pretty short, with relentless blasting, shredding and throat-wrecking howls, but, like both aforementioned acts, they do slow down briefly, but those moments are few and far between. The material is fast, powerful and, although I’m not a big fan of blasting grindcore, pretty fucking good! Clocking in at just under 18 minutes, this is the perfect length for their style of material, anything more would make listening to the effort difficult due to the rawness and general lack of variety in their music.

Relevant Few, consisting of Unholy vocalist Henke Svensson, ex-Gooseflesh bassist Robert Hakemo, Runemagick drummer Mojjo and guitarist Kristian Lampila, have been around since 2000 and play a style of grindcore more along the lines of the mighty Napalm Death. Everything from the vocal styles, to song structures and even guitar tone reek of Napalm Death. While the material has the same sound and feel, the music is pretty original, and extremely well played. There are choppy blasts, roaring vocals, shredding riffs and a few breakdowns to keep the material from becoming monotonous. The song structures couldn’t have been put together any better than if it had been done by the Brit’s themselves, every song is aggressive, intense and harsh, but never becomes an overwhelming wall of noise. I don’t know how I went 7 years before discovering this band, but I’m glad I did, this is death grind the way it’s meant to be played!

If Napalm Death and Nasum had recorded a split offering 2-3 years ago, this is exactly what it would have sounded like, and I fucking love it. The grinding insanity of Afgrund and the harsh tones of Relevant Few make for one intense, and very memorable split recording. I urge everyone to pick up this effort, well worth the money and I definitely look forward to hearing more from both of these great Swedish bands!

Written By: Teufel