Split CD? Why not a split review? Hobo and Joannie give us their split take on this release. 

First off Hobo takes on Premonitions of War

Premonitions of War are an extremely difficult band to underpin from a genre-label perspective. Critics have called them everything from metallica hardcore, to death metal, to grinding groove metal. This seems to be born of the bands trans-genre mindset - as quoted from their website;

"We're not a metal band - we don't have long hair and we don't wear bullet belts. We want to make music that will combine different types of heavy music without expressing the shortcomings of any of them."

While one can hardly validate their fairly weak stab at metals 'bullet belts' and 'long hair', you similarly cannot do anything but respect their approach to music - blending genres, taking a holistic approach to the heavy and the hardcore - and it is this mind set that have allowed for truly great bands past to rise above limitations of genres. Three very recent ones that come to mind - Dillinger Escape Plan, Pig Destroyer and Mastodon.

Stylistically, Premonitions of War is absolutely nothing like the aforementioned. They jump from bottom-heavy grind brutality, to hardcore-esque breakdowns, to cowbell toting southern rock and stoner metal within the space of a few minutes. Theres one way to describe it; unique. The only band that comes to mind are those Aussie metallers Blood Duster - but even so, the two are worlds apart.

The split begins with a relentlessly heavy grind passage (courtesy of some ridiculously huge bottom end) that breaks midway into cool, crushing breakdown. From there we jump straight into a southern-rock-come-blues tinged metal groove track - and there's that cowbell. The vocalist sings in a style more akin to the southern rock genre, but with a death metal twist. In the background, laid back solos fade in and out. Damn stylish stuff.

Then we jump straight back into the brutality. On 'A Useless Language' we find little more than ninety seconds of bottom-heavy pummeling. Sledgehammer grindcore, that would remind me of The Day Everything Became Nothing if it wasn't so bizarre.

Premonitions of War finish off their nine minutes of the twenty-five minute split by bringing back that stoner rock element. I think the bands website and promotion described their style better than I can; a mess of low-end-heavy hardcore, grind and utter dirge that blasts right through you, caves in your face and stomps your remains to bits. A wall of sound.

I will definitely be looking out for a full-length purely out of wonderment for what they could achieve given more time. 

For Fans Of: Unsane, Soilent Green and Superjoint Ritual

Rating: 3.5
 

Now Joannie gives us her take on the Benumb section of the disc or as she calls it the "Muppet" portion.

Finally, a record for the whole family to enjoy! The new Split CD by Premonitions of War & Benumb offers something for everyone from the knee huggers to the tree huggers in your trendy family.

The first four songs on this short CD will have you smiling at the vocal stylings from the upcoming movie, "Muppet Metal". These songs might bolster your appreciation that you live in a free society, where Disney or whoever owns the rights to the Muppet franchise can attempt to squeeze dollars out of anything they can. The Musicianship of this 4-song sampler is competent at times; clumsy at others, but mainly the singing is what to pay attention to. Got a house fulla kids that are bored over summer break? Play this for 'em. All kids love fuzzy puppets, & even more when they play fast music!

To balance out the orgy of capitalism & praise for a free economy, the remaining 7 songs on this disc boast the Tipper Gore Seal of Approval. To qualify for this prestigious award, only awarded previously to SOAD, lyrics must be 'socially relevant', which is a wink & nudge euphemism for 'liberal & anti war'.

In a recent interview, a band member stated (I swear I didn't make thisup) "Personally speaking for myself, right now in the US the news is 24hours, war?war..war? and there are some many different views, and speeches, and he said/she said just flying at you. It's hard to believe anything and take a stance. Should the US be a "bully" to every other nation, and take something over when they see it as a small threat? On the other hand, I am sure a lot of the Iraqi population want to be liberated, Saddam and his sons are madmen that need to be removed from power. Was this the way to do it? We'll see, but everyday it seems to just unravel more and more."

Yup. Poor Uday and Qusay, they were so busy at the office, dealing with their political enemies that between the agonized screams of their dissenters & the roar of the wood chipper, they just couldn't hear the phone ringing when the US called them to ask them politely to start playing nice.

The Benumb boys pay lip service (I suppose, the lyrics are pretty indecipherable.) to the value of living like a free thinking independent, media message rejecting non-lemming. That they shout this from their position as the punk representatives on the "Bash Bush & This War Sucks!" bandwagon doesn't strengthen their claims much.

Ooops, sorry, I guess for a CD review, the info on the music of this section of the Split disc is pretty scant. I'll try to remedy this now The music is fine, with minimal dragging. One song is repetitive, both musically & lyrically. I guess when the 'trendy liberal sentiment of the month' ideological catalog is picked over, the leftovers are ugly.

Too bad they don't offer this in an instrumental, then I could listen to it in my vehicle without getting excommunicated by the Republican Party.

Rating: 2 stars - 1 for the Muppets, 1 for the music.
 

Tag Team: Premonitions Of War & Benumb

Label:Thorp

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