Record Review: Meatpacker / Fetus Christ split (Cryptic Grind Records / Samizdat Records / Shred Perry Records / Skin & Bones Records / Vleesklak Records]

[3 // Edition of 325 // https://meatpacker.bandcamp.com/album/meatpacker-fetus-christ]

When I grew up listening to hardcore, CDs were already around and sometimes I'd get handed a demo tape but it felt like records and hardcore had no place together.   I suppose at some point in time there had to be hardcore records for lack of another medium, but still, I'm rather amazed that people will put hardcore music on vinyl as it is supposedly so expensive and yet the songs are so short.   (And I'm not just referring to this record because there are many, many others out there as well)

Nevertheless we have a good old fashioned split record here.   Meatpacker is the harder of the two on some level as they tear things up with that onslaught I can compare to Converge and Every Time I Die on a grand scale and more personally can relate to one of the bands I've been listening to most lately (If only because of their new album/baseball season) Puig Destroyer.

Fetus Chris pulls no punches musically but the vocals aren't as screamed as those of Meatpacker.   They remind me of something closer to the punk side of hardcore, maybe Skarhead or something along those lines as there are other bands I can't think of right now because it has just seemingly been too long.

In many ways this record takes me back to a time when both Victory Records (Yeah, them) and Revelation Records were putting out the best quality of hardcore music.   Those were back in the Warzone days and they will never be duplicated.   I shudder to think at what passes for music on Victory Records these days.

It also is worth noting that despite the seeming quickness of these songs (They're fast and hard, like a punch to the throat) they do have verses and choruses and you may look at it on paper and say "Forty two seconds, what?", but these two artists make every second count.