Misery Index

Assuck | Format: Audio CD

Product Details

• Audio CD (August 1, 1997)
• Number of Discs: 1
• Label: Sound Pollution
• ASIN: B0000DEOHP
• Also Available in: Audio CD  |  Vinyl
• Average Customer Review: 4.2 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (6 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #645,565 in Music (See Top 100 in Music)

Track Listings

1. Qed

2. Salt Mine

3. Corners

4. Dataclast

5. Blight of Element

6. Talon of Dominion

7. Unrequited Blood

8. Wartorn

9. Sum and Substance

10. Riven

11. Reversing Denial

12. Lithographs

13. Intravenous

14. A Moment to Failure

15. In Absence

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

2 of 2 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars A hefty slab of grindcore to help pass the time at the office..., February 22, 2008

By 

smudgedlens (Denver, CO USA) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Misery Index (Audio CD)

Assuck was a wonderful band that had a passion for playing short, heavy songs. On first listen, it may seem like a complete joke, but if you have plenty of time on your hands, you might start listening more carefully to each song and trying to pick out some of the subtleties therein. If I had to describe the music, I would say fun-size bites of brutal death metal. The production isn't great, which just adds to the overall effect. However, there is some pretty decent drumming and guitar work - providing a surprising amount of variety and keeping things a little more lively than you'd expect. 'Misery Index' is a true classic of the grind genre, and a gem that any fan should have in their collection.

2 of 2 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars There is a war, this is a weapon..., October 7, 2005

By 

robotiq "robotiq" (UK) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Misery Index (Audio CD)

Five years after dropping their relentless 'Anticapital' debut, Assuck round off their legendary career with this masterpiece. The time away was obviously spent streamlining the band's horrific vision of punk-fuelled Grindcore/Death Metal into one of the greatest records the genre has ever seen.

Prepare yourself for fifteen songs of pure anger, darkness, violence and destruction. Fifteen minutes - a supersonic tornado of blast-beat fury into which Assuck effortlessly display such an incredible grasp of high-speed song dynamics that you're left wondering what the hell just happened. Pick your feeble jaw back up off the floor to read through the booklet of brutally intelligent political lyrics and prepare for the realisation that most those records in your so-called 'extreme metal' collection are now utterly superfluous, trust me - I've been there.

1 of 1 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Green Andy Reviews: Assuck - Misery Index, October 4, 2009

By 

A. ZIATS "Green Andy" (New York, NY, USA) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Misery Index (Audio CD)

Oh my god. 15 songs in 15 minutes. Assuck are the absolute pinnacle of grindcore, playing their music to the perfect extreme without ever going over the edge into parody (hey Agoraphobic Nosebleed, how's it going?) and keeping the production values high and the musicianship excellent. An anarchist grind group from Florida, this was the band's last album before breaking up in early 1998, but they certainly left on a high note. All of the songs here are stripped to the bone, and played as brutally as possible.

You'd think it would be tough to pick out favorites with the songs whipping past so quickly, but in fact Assuck are very memorable songwriters, with an obvious stylistic debt to early grindcore and death metal, as well as a penchant for doom metal riffing. In the span of one minute and nine seconds, "Salt Mine" is able to switch between gloomy breakdowns and manic speed-thrash reminiscent of Napalm Death's SCUM. "Dataclast" highlights the very impressive drumming of Rob Proctor, who is surprisingly audible throughout the album, and gets in a few nice tempo changes in the song's last 18 seconds. "Blight of Element", "Wartorn", "Intravenous" and "A Monument to Failure" all contain amazing riffs that a lesser band would have played out ad nauseum, but Assuck keep everything compact and catchy, never allowing anything to get old. "A Monument to Failure" is the doomiest song on the album, starting out as a slow dirge, switching over to a screeching midsection and then back to a medium-tempo pound, all in the span of 59 seconds.

While the lyrics are mostly unintelligible thanks to the death metal vocals, songs like "Talon of Dominion" and "Sum and Substance" have strong anti-capitalist leanings. In fact, the harshest political tracks here tend to be the most intense grindcore numbers, as if the band couldn't bear to cover up their best riffs with lyrics. Whatever the reason, the album is fairly equally divided into vocal-centric and riff-centric tunes. Why aren't Assuck more well-known? Did you know who they were before this review? Well, you do now. Go find this album.