Cassette Review: xBEANDIPx "John G: Bean Inspector LP" (BLEACH MOJITO RECORDS)

[$3 CAD // Edition of 8 // https://bleachmojitorecords.bandcamp.com/album/john-g-bean-inspector-lp]

I'm not sure whether the x's mean that this Beandip is straight edge or not but I do feel like it's hardcore.   I'm not sure what rules straight edge kids follow these days either, but I'm pretty beandip might not be vegan and that might not make it straight edge either.   I don't know, man.   All I know is if you don't put something in your beandip- like some kind of spice- it just tastes very bland and has a paste-like texture to it.   If you got just plain beandip you could probably walk around smearing it on things and people would mistake it for poop.

So this cassette does begin with some sharpness.   Heavy drums come in and then it turns into metal sludge.   There are screams and to put this in the most general of ways this sounds like a cross between Today Is the Day and Converge.   There are of course other elements of that metal sound and the hardcore-in-your-face as well, but those were the two broadest and possibly most recognizable names I could come up with just to help you, my dear reader.     There is a grinding chuggah-chuggah and as I begin to hear something that could be off of "In Utero" it goes fast paced and punk into some cross between "March of the Pigs" and Minor Threat.

Side B is full of back and forth screeches, GRIND and it is even industrial to some extent.   At first- and for quite a bit on Side B- there are no vocals and this is instrumental, but eventually the screams do come.    This is definitely music over vocals and in that way it also reminds me of Backstabbers, Inc., though it's just missing the badass audio clips.    At the end there is talking but it's not an audio clip or anything similarly so I can only bring in that sort of comparison.

The thing with this cassette and xBEANDIPx is that sometimes you can listen for a stretch and hear just the same sort of influenced sound, such as some metal band no one else has ever heard of before, but then at other times you can hear all of these different bands coming out at once and within seconds of each other.    In some ways I feel like that's what all good music in the realm of hardcore/metal should represent- that little piece of everyone that helped to shape them all wrapped up into one and that is exactly the goodness that I can hear on this cassette.