Cripple Bastards - "La fine cresce da dentro" (Relapse Records, 2018)

Band: Cripple Bastards
Title: La fine cresce da dentro
Genre: Grindcore
Time: 29.03 min
Release date: 9th November 2018
Rating: 92/100













Service communication:

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I still remember, as if it were yesterday, how was bestial and intense the show that Cripple Bastards did last year at the Traffic Live Club in Rome. The violent moshpit, the hallucinated looks on us by Giulio the Bastard, the precise but devastating performances of the band, the general craziness of that night... WOW, that's I call a very fukken memorable gig! Well, Cripple Bastards come back today on these pages because now you're preparing to read a review about their 7th album "La fine cresce da dentro" (Italian for "the end grows within"). Even though it is relatively old since it was released in the end of 2018, I received it during the early days of 2019 by the Italian agency Anubi Press, whose owner Luca Pessina wrote many years ago for the now defunct Grind Zone, surely the most extreme metal magazine that you could to find at the Italian newsstands! Now let me say already that "La fine cresce da dentro" deserves a lot but it cannot be otherwise also because it is the second album of the band released by Relapse Records, a label always ready to release very extreme but also a bit unconventional stuff. And Cripple Bastards are both!

The first beautiful thing to say about "La fine cresce da dentro" is that it opens with a totally sonic shock through the short, hyper-violent grinding attack of "Suicidio assistito", that has to be considered without any fuckin' doubts like the most ferocious song in the album. But this is the first episode of a tracklist offering something more than only blind and chaotic violence. This means that you must expect to listen to 18 tracks that, thanks to a very dynamic and creative grindcore, are characterized by an outstanding variety. And I think that this "outstanding variety" has been also a result of the new Cripple's drummer, the hyper-active Raphael Saini who, strong of notable past experiences with bands like Corpsefucking Art but even with Iced Earth (these aren't trivalities, men!), added new dynamics in the band's sound due to his technical approach.

In this album, the variety is total since it's about the music in its entirety, so also the vocal department. In fact, the vocal performances of Giulio are truly impressive because, firstly, he ranges through many vocal styles, so he spit out different screams as well very deep growls and there are also cleaner (but NEVER melodic, mind you!) vocals from time to time, with the addition of gang choruses in order to make more intense the entire assault. More importantly, Giulio is a singer full of expressivity, and, as always, his poetic and intelligent lyrics, so much in contrast with the devastating violence of Cripple Bastards, adds something more fascinating to their style.

Said about the vocals, the album offers a lot of surprises song after song, but I think that Cripple Bastards give their best, also in terms of variety, in the longer episodes of "La fine cresce da dentro". These ones are "Chiusura forzata" (that has some slow and dark parts during its 5 minutes of lenght) and the closing "Crociati del mare interno" (notable, for example, for the great interaction between the guitarplayers - there is also Wild Vitto on the guitars but he doesn't belongs anymore in the band since 2018), and I wonder why both are the only songs in the album to feature (very effective and also frightful) movie samples. But I can't absolutely forget to mention other numbers such as "Ombra nell'ombra" (truly hardcore punk-oriented), the thrashing "Crimine contro l'immagine", the following "Narcolessia emotiva" (that contains some of the most amazing riffs in the album!) and, especially, that demented noisecore experimentation called "Decessi per cause sconosciute", a lot disorienting because it consists of 19 killing micro-songs in only 80 seconds of time. Curiously, there are 3 separated micro-songs ("Equilibrio ansiogeno", "Interrato vivo" and "Quali sentieri") already before "Decessi per cause sconosciute", so I wonder also why they haven't been incorporated in that comprehensive song.

In simple words, I strongly believe that "La fine cresce da dentro" is the BEST grindcore album released in 2018! This because it has everything throughout its 29 minutes: ultra-violence, intensity, technical skills, chaos, complexity, guitar solos (like in "Non coinvolto"), atmospheric sections even with melodies, riffs giving a dark feeling, dissonant guitars, different influences coming from extreme metal as well from the most demented hardcore punk forms, lunatic and ever-changing vocals (there is also a guest vocalist named Guido "Zazzo" Sassola in the song "Dove entra il coltello"), and deep lyrics. I've to say that I'd like a lot to talk about the lyrics in a possible interview with Cripple Bastards, since lyrics of this kind can't be ignored in any fukken way! At this point, I hope to see again Cripple Bastards live as soon as possible but, for the moment, they recently finished a 6-day tour in Japan along with the mighty Raw Power. It seems that this tour was a great underground success...but could be it otherwise with this sort of cult bands?

Tracklist:

1 - Suicidio assistito
2 - Non coinvolto
3 - La memoria del dolore
4 - Passi nel vuoto
5 - Ombra nell'ombra
6 - Due metà in un errore
7 - Chiusura forzata
8 - Dove entra il coltello
9 - Crimine contro l'immagine
10 - Narcolessia emotiva
11 - Nervi in guerra
12 - Sguardo neutro
13 - Equilibrio ansiogeno
14 - Interrato vivo
15 - Quali sentieri
16 - Decessi per cause sconosciute
17 - Recidive
18 - Crociati del mare interno

Line-up:

Giulio the Bastard - vocals
Der Kommissar - guitars
Wild Vitto - guitars
Schintu the Wretched - bass
Raphael Saini - drums

Guest:

Guido "Zazzo" Sassola - vocals (track 8)

Homepage: https://www.cripple-bastards.com/
FaceBook: https://www.facebook.com/cripplebastards
Relapse Records: https://store.relapse.com/
Anubi Press: https://www.facebook.com/AnubiPress/