J-Man It may be tough to take a band named Squash Bowels seriously, but Grindcoholism (their sixth and most recent observation) shows that these Polish veterans mean business... provided that you're defining business as “balls-out, take-no-prisoners” grindcore. Drawing inspiration from grindcore pioneers like Napalm Death and Carcass, as well as the fat riffage of Swedish death metal outfits like Entombed and Grave, Grindcoholism is not a wildly innovative album by any stretch, but its catchy d-beat grooves and powerful production make it an enjoyable enough spin. Although Squash Bowels may not have totally set the world on fire here, this solid collection of grinding insanity would fit nicely in any fan of the genre's collection.

Time Signature Black thing...

Genre: grindcore

This was Squash Bowels' debut album, and it has has somewhat of a cult status (one reason being that it has been somewhat of a rarity). Grindcore fans will be happy to know that 2011 is the year that this cult release is reissued.

Anyway, there are three tracks on this release, but in really each track is a collection of grindcore microsongs, most of which are pretty typical grindcore with blastbeats galore, crushingly heavy and groovy passages, harsh and indecipherable vocals and loads of intensity. And, like a lot of other grindcore, the individual microsong is and intense experience, but an entire album (well, it's only 26 minutes of playing time) microsong upon microsong of grindcore chaos becomes a monotonous and tedious listen at the end of the day.

But this is where Squash Bowels becomes interesting. It's not all chaotic microsong grinding, as some of the tunes are dark and almost avant-garde sonic experiments of an almost soundscape character, and these are actually very interesting. They are interesting in their own right, but they also create an interesting contrast with the grindcore tunes.

Fans of extreme music will probably find this release to be brilliant, and personally I think there is a lot of interesting stuff on it, but my overall impression is that, while interesting, it is not the best (nor the worst) grindcore I have heard, and the intensity does wane in the span of the 26 minutes of playing time.