This mathy style of grind is becoming a hell of a lot more present. Between the more popular Dillinger Escape Plan, Psyopus, Ion Dissonance, and a whole load of bands the style isn’t exactly rare or too unique. It’s getting to the point in some cases where songwriting is being sacrificed for the sheer sake of spazz and the merit of the bizarre technicality alone is no longer enough to save it. Luckily, Psychofagist is not one of them.

Actually, bringing up Psychofagist alongside old DEP and Psyopus is somewhat of a misnomer. Psychofagist’s style is more of a strange blend of Cephalic Carnage hydrogrind (minus the style varieties they stuff into their records) with some occasional spicing on top from the aforementioned spazz-laden mathcore/grind scene. Certainly the wackier high screeching guitar riffs and the hollowed out screams might remind some of the number-driven masturbation of Dillinger Escape Plan, but the main grind itself is more brutal and remind one of the grind-centric and jazzier moments of Lucid Interval or Exploiting Dysfunction-era Cephalic Carnage. Even the screaming vocals are a tad bit more on the side of Luc Lemay’s throaty yells than the straight hardcore-driven wails of Psyopus or DEP. There are still spazz parts, but the music is more ridiculously technical brutal grind than it is spazz.

This says nothing of how effective the sound is. If you were to play Cephalic Carnage’s unique grind for a monkey, the monkey wearing the headphones would look at you all confused for a few seconds, may or may not freak out, return to the bizarre look of bewilderment, and then ultimately jerk himself off and jizz into his own mouth. If you were to place Psychofagist onto the headphones, the monkey would do the same look of confusion, may or may not freak out, and then be incredibly indecisive on whether or not he should whip out his junk and proceed at light speed to deliver the cargo to his oral docking bay. He’ll have his hand on his cock, ready to rock out, but will then get hesitant and pull away, only to put it there again as if to launch into full jerk mode. Psychofagist is by no means bad, but it definitely takes some time to accustom oneself to their strange breed of grind. Once you do get accustomed, however, it becomes a mind numbingly brutal ride.

Overall, Psychofagist is a pretty good catch for people looking into the wackier technical grind. It’s not going to replace your Cephalic Carnage CDs, but it certainly is better than what the mathcore scene has been putting out lately.

Written By: Necro-tron