Death Vacation – “Bones Grow Cold”
One of the best things I like about grindcore or power violence, and let’s throw d-beat in there as well, is each song is like walking into an accident or a catastrophe.
Your swept up in a sea of violent sound. It’s your senses being jostled. Maybe their being startled into panic or maybe your just being shocked into being really alive. Either way, you’re thrust into this sound and excitement. And you know you won’t have much time to react, because you know the song is gonna pass by quick. So, though you know that it’s just a song- your first reaction is panic mode, is fight or flight. And I find that…extremely enticing.
And I find Death Vacation another one of those new bands, you know, closer to metal than punk but that hits with such a purity and truth, that they come off as more punk than most punk bands I know.
And I checked then out because they were headlining such a killer bill, recently at The Wreck Center, along with two of my favorite bands- DestrOi and D-Sagawa.
I noticed they are from New Jersey but I won’t eliminate them, because N.J. is just N.Y. with one different letter. And Broken Heroes are from New Jersey, and they’re just about the best Oi band you can see.
But this review is about Death Vacation and they are a female fronted band who use such tags as punk, d-beat, feminism, grindcore, hardcore- on their bandcamp page.
I would like to have their music speak for themselves. But before I do, I wanna tag them with fierce, unrelenting, passionate, true, brutally hard and after you listen, I feel you will, too.
After some guitar feedback and a nice, but conventional guitar intro, “Hollow Victory” is propelled by a grooving hard rock beat and doesn’t have words or accelerate until the final seven seconds. But it leaves a nice taste in your ear, for more to come.
“Bones Grow Cold” explodes with such speed and energy it’s like a viper shooting its fangs at your throat. “Secrets kept/ Lies protected/ Promises broken/ I’m fucking choking/ Bones grow cold.” The rhythms catapult over each other, the vocals spit out venom like from a poisonous snake. There’s a short respite towards the end when a headbanging riff pops up for the last five seconds or so- “Hearts sink/ Now fucking repeat.” Don’t wash your hair! Keep replaying this great, fucking song.
With a slow precise beginning, “Parasitic,” is like an insane ambulance driver careening wildly through alleyways that exist only in your mind. “You judge, you mock, you exclude/ Like you said you’d never do/ You judge, you mock, you exclude/ Just like they did to you.” The drums pummel along, the vocals snarl and spit bile into your face. The intensity and fury of this song is unreasonable and unfathomable. The anger and poison of the words are brought to full gestation by the unrelenting, ruthless, deadly music. This is intensity stuffed down your throat and then pulled out leaving bloody vital organs in its trail. And this is one of the best songs I’ve heard this year.
“Sentience” is twenty-eight seconds of unstoppable rhythm, unapologetic vitriolic vocals with words that would seem to support vegan ideas. “The value of an animal’s life is not determined by your taste buds.” And is the musical equivalent of being in an accident and having your ear scraped one hundred yards across hot asphalt.
“Flock of sheep/ Blind faith society/ A lack of reasoning/ Acceptance of regulated lies/ Poor understanding of what drives us to stay alive.” What starts as a tempo within the speed limits soon turns “Weak End” into a high-speed chase. This song has a metal, or mental breakdown towards the end, then dies away peacefully leaving you like a happy victim of a tragic accident.
Now it’s time for me to write something clever, or “illuminating” or something that points towards a truth partially hidden.
But, as I’ve said previously, I would like their music to speak for themselves. And, I’m sure, after hearing me blabber on, they would like that, too.
There was a Boston band in the eighties, The New Models, who had a song called “Permanent Vacation” and, if I recall correctly, it referred to death.
But if death is as pure and sublime as music like this…Why, it’s just like taking a warm slumber, slipping into a calm dream.
But simmer down, now! Don’t do anything drastic.
This is just a great band who songs are short which, some people say of life.
I encourage you to enjoy this band, this album.
It’ll be over before you know it.
(Slimedog)
