Lista de los grupos Hardcore Norris Bone Crusher

Canada has always been home to some of the greatest and yet most bizarre bands. Voivod became Thrash Metal icons with surreal albums like Killing Technology or Nothingface, Gorguts sublimated Death Metal with the one and only Obscura and recently we've been given the sheer madness of progressive grindcore masters Cephalectomy.

Norris is a Canadian Grindcore band.









Hey, just kidding... I thought it'd be good enough for a review. I mean Grindcore and Canadian in the same sentence, that should either scare the shit out of you or draw you like flies to the sun. I mean it's like writing Death Metal and Czech Republic from this side of the pond. You know you're in for something peculiar.

Norris already released a first EP/demo prior to releasing their latest “Bone Crusher”. I guess this time they clearly wanted to impress their friends and relatives because everything's been done quite professionally (hmm... a bit too much maybe by the looks of the Myspace page but that's fine). Guys have all nice haircuts and dress like the Presidents Of The United States Of America and smile like CEO's on a payroll.

Musically, it's freaking intense. Most Grind acts will try and pack as many songs as possible in 15 minutes... I mean 15 minutes is a long time and you could easily fit something like... 40 songs? Easily. Ask Anal Cunt or Agoraphobic Nosebleed. Norris takes the other way around. In 15 minutes, they pack the gigantic amount of... four tracks.

Four tracks to explore various ideas and give some body to otherwise senseless expressions of sheer violence. Well, the violence is there, don't get me wrong, but they also have some great technique. I was mentioning Obscura earlier, wasn't I? Take the eponymous track for instance and you'll find yourself with dissonant riffing a la Gorguts, tortured rhythms that would make Genghis Tron proud of.
It's got some progressive elements to this violence that make the record challenging for listeners. Definitely not the stuff you get into from the first time. It takes time to get used to the constant changes of the music but if you can just get into it, you'll find it worth your efforts.

Efforts. Speaking of the devil, my favorite track is the final one: The Dirge. Fantastic intro with the piano, the kind of scary stuff that makes Pinhead and other Cenobites pop out of your headphones. Then comes the sonic avalanche of brutality, only this time they downed the tempo so much it's barely Grindcore any longer. Right? Well, most people feel that Grindcore is all about being supersonic and superbrutal, just like they think that Doom Metal is all about being super slow and heavy. If people would only care more about the past and remember bands like Prophecy Of Doom or the mighty Blood, they'd know they'd better shut up.
I know The Dirge may not be the most representative track on this EP, but to me it's Norris' most glorious achievement and it fits very well in these intense 15 minutes. The perfect complement to the first three tracks of sheer brutality.

I hear the stuff is already available via various media... Try and spend a few bucks to get your own copy, digital or not, of Bone Crusher. Canada and Grindcore, remember?


PS: I see 5 tracks to this EP on Spirit Of Metal's page... but I only had 4!