I consider myself to be a pleasant person.
In fact not only pleasant, but down-right damned polite. Fourteen years of Catholic school, a jewish mother, and 10+ years in the food service industry, if there is one thing I can pride myself on: it is my manners.
To be more candid, I never really got the whole powerviolence grind-core schtick. I have grown up loving punk music, but I can quote myself as saying for many years through my early 20’s: ‘what time of day would you listen to grind-core?’
Uhm, all the time. I wake up and listen to Void, I listen to Escuela Grind’s new album Indoctrination 3 times before my breakfast at 2pm.
Now it didn’t take a global pandemic for me to find affinity for grind-core. I would say listening to Cloudrat and hearing Dropdead a few months previous vastly changed my perspective on the genre.
The two bands (working in different cities and eras) merge punk with hard-core to produce some of the most brutal music imaginable. But the experience is completely invigorating and freeing. Nothing really understands anger like hard-core or grind-core music, and you need it if you can survive through a news cycle, let alone a damn pandemic.
Indoctrination, the new album by the Pittsfield powerviolence group Escuela Grind is another pivotal record for me within the genre. It has everything you’d want in an album, gritty, loud, memorable, well paced, Indoctrination is an amazing piece of work.
The 17 songs are just under a half hour of almost nonstop noise and anger. The album ends with a ten minute outro, the song, “Indoctrinated” as well as a bonus track. The song “Indoctrinated” is an amazing musical feat of well timed noise and disruption. The band features Katerina Economou on vocals, Jesse Fuentes on drums, Kris Morash on guitar/ bass and Jason Balthazar Eldridge on guitar. The COVID pandemic obviously disrupted their tour, but when touring can safely resume, catch Escuela Grind at a gig near you.
Check out Escuela Grind’s new record Indoctrination out now on the Armageddon Shop Label now and remember to support musicians and labels through the COVID-19 Pandemic in Boston and around the world.
Album Artwork by Dan Rossiter
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Chris Hues is a human & writer from Boston, Ma & Associate Editor of bostonhassle.com. //// They can be reached at [email protected] or @crsjh_ via instagram & twitter.
