Grip Inc.

Solidify (Metal Blade)
by Martin Popoff

Slowly over time, dispensing with all forms of Slayerism (Grip Inc. own probably six of the best Slayer tracks of the ’90s), Sorychta and crew have now fully arrived with a presentation and persona distinctly their own. And what we get is a cranky, ranting and raving Rammstein, Killing Joke, or Mission of metal, Grip Inc. pulling the best elements of leaden Goth and putting them through their very metal blender. Remember that tingle you first felt with Ministry’s Psalm 69? Well, that’s back, within a uniquely metal format, those same apocalyptic bellows, that same forward trudge. Only this time, the drama is created with bass and drum barrages, all laced with many Middle Eastern flavors, or more accurately, middle British flavours of a grimly vampiric nature. I can see that whole Metallica, Paradise Lost, Moonspell, Entombed debate kicking up again (a third of this does for Grip Inc. what “Until It Sleeps” did for Metallica), but such put-downs ignore the high hoovering, groove-thick riffery all over this dramatic, well-assembled pageant of pounding (albeit much of it come chorus-time, as a high number of verses pour by on quiet liquid idle). Weird, sorta like an Against-era Sepulturian hardcore version of Page Plant’s unplugged Zep classics, sent black-coat-flowing through the moors with Blixa and Nick Cave.
(2828 Cochran St. PMB #302 Simi Valley, CA 93065)