Willowtip head honcho Jason Tipton sent me a promo copy of Phobia’s Cruel telling me I’d fucking love it. I’m not sure what gave him the impression I’d like it, let alone love it, considering I’m not a fan of anything else they’ve done, but I figured I’d finally give the new album a listen last week and, as Mr. Horse from Ren and Stimpy would say "No sir, I don’t like it."

Phobia play no frills straight forward grindcore, full of blasts, shredding riffs and a lot of yelling and screaming. I guess this band can be considered an homage to Scum and From Enslavement To Obliteration-era Napalm Death as they play a similar style of high-paced grindcore, mixed with crusty punk and hardcore. Unfortunately for them Napalm Death are still around and playing the same style of music, only playing it a lot better than these guys.

Even the worst Napalm Death album has at least a song or two that are worth coming back to listen to. I’ve yet to find the same to be true of Phobia, every track on this release is just repetitive and monotonous. The best example of the monotony is the track "So Full Of Hate", repeating the phrase "You’re so full of hate" 50 times in a 75 second song while the drummer blasts and the guitarist and bassist shred non-stop makes me full of hate and makes me want to punch the vocalist in the fucking teeth. Then again I’ve wanted to punch Shane in the teeth ever since I had the misfortune of doing an interview with him while the band was promoting Serenity Through Pain when they were still signed to Deathvomit Records. The interview basically consisted of him dropping the N-bomb every other word for a full half hour making it basically a complete waste of time as I had no interest in publishing it for fear people would think this site was a place where Klan members come to rally.

Regardless of my personal disdain for Shane, it doesn’t change the fact that this album is annoying and completely lacking in replay value. I can honestly say the only interesting thing Phobia has done in their entire 15+ year existence is attack their audience with their instruments in Japan.

Written By: Teufel