Abscess/Population Reduction

Split

Always been dirty, but now it’s getting’ ugly | Tankcrimes

Splits used to be cool. Back in the day, you got one band on each side of a 7-inch. If you got tired of one, you could just flip the record. You also sounded cool by saying you had splits by bands before they got big. Now you get awkward split CDs where one band’s songs start halfway through. Even worse, everyone already has the MP3s. Why own something if it doesn’t make you cool?

Well, you could enjoy it, for starters. Abscess (a.k.a. Chris Reifert’s non-Autopsy band) and Population Reduction, outfits with nothing in common except for being from the Bay Area and perhaps children embarrassed about the name of daddy’s band: not the most glamorous pairing. But that’s precisely the appeal here. The respective purveyors of Urine Junkies and Every Birth a New Disaster are in fact fine bands—at least for 14-minute stretches.

Abscess know they’re not virtuosos—they make Asphyx sound like Cryptopsy—so they wisely work only with what they’ve got. The songs are memorable because they have so few riffs. Primitive blast beats and gutbucket riffs rumble with delightful rawness. The solos are beautiful little smears, and the production is big and raw. Population Reduction are a cross between grindcore and crossover thrash. Their sound is zippy and mean. Slayer and D.R.I. already covered this ground, but it’s still fun to revisit. This split is like the ultimate basement show. I would have bought T-shirts from both bands.

—Cosmo Lee

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