Most Helpful Customer Reviews
|
|
5 of 5 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
Swedish Grindcore To Mash Your Brain!!!!, June 4, 2003
The masters of metallic grindcore are finally back with their long-awaited third full length. Nasum forced their development from straight forward grindcore like on "Inhale/Exhale" to more playfully and metal influenced grind which you could already hear on the last album "Human 2.0". But with "Helvete" they set new standards again because the production is better than on the last album and will blow you away. The title already shows it because "Helvete" is the Swedish word for hell and when you listen to it you'll think those tunes come from the depths of hell to punish your mind! Just think of the speed of "Inhale/Exhale" combined with some breaks and playfully passages. Don't get me wrong mostly they step on the accelerator and offer blasting songs that often clock under the 2 minutes mark! I also think that you have to get used to the sound of the album and please don't judge it after just one listening because after several repetitions "Helvete" shows its evil beauty. Nasum do everything right from the guitar-riffing that changes from moshy grind attacks to virtuous metal stuff to the bass and drum work which is the brutal backbone of this grinding machine! More than ever they change between Mieszko's screaming and Jesper's low grunts and the battling between both vocals makes the album even more worthwhile! They also added a great packaging (artwork and layout) to this milestone and I don't have to mention that they offer intelligent,..and even hateful lyrics. Already Barney Greenway from Napalm Death said "Extreme metal doesn't get much better than this" and he's right!
|
|
|
2 of 2 people found the following review helpful:
4.0 out of 5 stars
A Grindcore Soundtrack To Hell On Earth, March 8, 2005
Barring the early days of punk in the late '70s, there's been no other genre in the history of rock that's been mocked, pilloried and pissed on by the mainstream as much as grindcore has. Ever since Napalm Death unleahsed their 28 songs in 34 minutes "Scum" debut in 1987, in all of its grisly, eye-with-scalpel-opening glory, and arguably invented the genre, grindcore has been labelled everything from "mindless noise" to "the end of music".
But the tide may well be changing, and the mainstream acceptance of bands as diverse as The Dillinger Escape Plan and Slipknot, who both feature a considerable grindcore element in their sound, is opening the doors to a wider acceptance of the genre as still one of the most relevant, thrilling and tirelessly open-ended forms of metal today. 2000's "Human 2.0", the second album from Orebro, Sweden trio Nasum (pronounced "Naw-Zum"), was arguably one of the finest grindcore ablums of all time. A scorching, lethal cocktail of punk nihilism, abstract conceptualism and searing extreme metal riffage, "Human 2.0" forged its forward-thinking grindcore identity out of bashed-to-bits contemporary metal grooves, rabid bursts of noise and a heralthy dose of bile-fuelled lyrical social conscience.
Third opus "Helvete" (Swedish for "hell") does not disappoint. The band's blast-ahead-full-throttle Napalm Death influence is more present than ever (ND bassist Shane Embury guests on two songs), and throughout its 35 minutes and 22 brutal tracks of grass-gurgling, double-tier vocals, neck-snapping blastbeats and grime-encrusted riffs, "Helvete" paints exactly the kind of stark and unforgiving canvas of contemporary humanity our burning world needs right now; be it the anti-war/anti-greed mayhem of "Violation", the extreme right-baiting judderr-fest of "Drop Dead" or the glacial hum of "The Final Sleep". Read the papers, watch the news. The world is a dark, ugly place at the moment. This is its soundtrack.
|
|
|
2 of 2 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
Breakneck, groovy, ..., June 20, 2003
Now, this is what grindcore should be like. Nasum offers up their third full length with a healthy dose of attitude, and a whole lot of energy. Blasting us with 22 tracks in a mere 35 minutes of running time, you know you're getting real grind here! Being the only Nasum album I own, I of course find it to be the best of their collection, but I find when I compare it to the songs I've heard from Human 2.0 (especially Shadows) it's not quite as catchy and... melodic. Though don't get me wrong, this CD is actually surprisingly melodic. Songs like Relics with the upper-mid tempo punky guitar break up the blasting furiosity of the rest of the tracks. Then there's the doom-esque song, The Final Sleep, that lets you relax into the groove. Hell, almost every song slows down just a bit and grooves along, creating Nasum's famous catchy hooks. Indeed, that is what will draw you into the album. Everytime you get sick of being pounded with blasting grind, they slow down to a crunchy hook, and you just cannot turn it off. However, through all this praise, I do have one complaint. The lyrics, overall, are pretty damn bad. Especially when I compare it to my afformentioned Human 2.0 favorite, Shadows. They just seem like they kinda cranked 'em out. Not as catchy, not as clever, and very angsty. But Talarczyk's vocal delivery, among the best in grind, keeps them sounding at least okay, and they do get you more into the album. Overall, if you like grind, and do not own this album... you're "a failure, a disgrace!"
|
|
|
Most Recent Customer Reviews
|
Interact With Your Music: Discover, listen to, and buy new music, all from the pages of SPIN's digital edition, free to Amazon customers.
by Nasum 
