Philadelphia’s brutalizing manic grind/thrash trio, Die Choking raided the opening slot of the Decibel Magazine Tour April 12th date with Noisem, Gorguts, The Black Dahlia Murder and Carcass also hammering ‘bangers in Pittsburgh on April 24th with label mates, Enabler.
At a staggering pace and running time of in or around six minutes the EP carries five raw, loud, superfast tunes embracing punk, thrash, grind and all the dirty, yucky, nasty things that make the underground extreme metal scene what it is.
Low Finality is hyperspeed, hardcore, with speed demons cranking out uberfast, supershort blast beat epics. Momentum is agonizing, thrashy with a DRI element. Greed War-Dillinger Escape Plan frantic, almost too fast for a circle pit. Reason Resist/Reason Reborn, at 49 seconds if what Obituary would sound like if they played at punk/grindcore speed. Uninstall blast beats with a slower guitar groove and at 1:30, is the long song of the group.
The yearning to create super-fast and brutal tunes brought them together, even critiquing/criticizing each other to play ‘faster’ and ‘more brutal’ during rehearsals. They just recorded their second EP due out in the summer and are working on the LP. The new tracks continue to ‘get faster’ as they’re adding more nuances and weird time signatures to the speed as things progress.
Herzog came to the table with some riffs and lyrical ideas and wanted to execute a more mid-range vocal style with guys like Blaine Fart, Kurt Brecht, Chuck Schuldiner and Martin Van Drunnen as the driving force. Something different than the typical high/low alternating approach that dominates most grindcore. They’re open-minded, very eclectic in their personal musical preferences and still completely obsessed with their instruments. There is a physical component to the style of music they play and embrace an endurance factor and, as a grindcore band, the interest and opportunity to progress never ends.
Their name came from their passionate dislike of a certain NFL quarterbacks treatment of dogs and the multiple interpretations it could have. “Once you go fast you don’t go back.” Herzog explains about the speed of their music. “I have tried over the last seven or so years to play more moderately paced music in an aggressive context. As I have aged, I have found it difficult to jam with musicians who don’t at least have the capacity to blast at 320 beats per minute.”
Lyrically it’s about greed, corruption and medical ethics, a good real-world lyrical base. Love songs and Dungeons and Dragons aren’t acceptable. They’re also very grateful and proud of the subculture that’s embraced their music and extreme music as an underground form of expression.
Cohen states “I tend to get a rush of nerves before every show small, medium, large…I think that’s part of the live experience, a healthy mix of nerves, adrenaline, excitement, anxiety, and then the physical and emotional avalanche of release as you play. To quote Bill Burr, “This Is What We Play For!”
Some information taken from the March 25th Die Choking interview on
www.decibelmagazine.com
www.diechoking.com
