8 minutes and 29 seconds. I can’t even finish dive-bombing Porcelain Harbour in that short amount of time, but Australian grinders Hailstones Kill 200 were able to cram 12 songs of angry chaotic intensity into that short time span on their debut mCD June 19 1932 on Grindhead Records.

With the high tuned guitars and the high-pitched wails June 19 1932 is an intense listening experience. Musically the band play a style of blasting grindcore that’s a blend of The Dillinger Escape Plan, Discordance Axis, Napalm Death and Swedish grind. Riffs are short with plenty of time changes and plenty of nods to the group’s various obvious influences. The music is well played with a solid percussive assault backing the group. The vocals are of the typical hard/grindcore variety with just a lot of screaming and yelling in the same manner with little to no variation. It just reminds me of going to see a movie with someone with their crying baby sitting in front of you. As much as you may try to enjoy the movie, you can’t help but be stricken with the urge to strangle both mother and child with your shoelaces, which is basically the feeling I have towards the endless screaming vocals.

Thankfully the album is very short, because so is my tolerance for the annoying vocal style employed by Hailstones Kill 200. The music is certainly not the most original grind ever written, with influences being blatantly obvious on every track, but they do a good enough job with the material they have to stir up a slight amount of interest, but they pale in comparison to other bands within the genre, and other Australian-based grinders. Its okay, but definitely not worth picking up for more than $5. It is only 8 1/2 minutes long, after all.

Written By: Teufel