Exhale – Blind

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Dark Balance
Produced by Exhale

If you enjoy the heavy buzz-saw guitar tone prevalent in the music of bands such as Dismember, Trap Them and Entombed, then you just might like this album. If you enjoy super-fast, super-heavy modern grindcore such as Pig Destroyer, Nasum and Rotten Sound, then you will very likely enjoy this album. If you enjoy both, then you will definitely love this album.

On their sophomore full-length album Blind, Swedish grind specialists Exhale masterfully and effortlessly combine a very tasty yet filthy buzzsaw guitar tone with ultra-fast, ultra-brutal lyrics and riffs to create a formula which is truly satisfying to any modern grindcore fan’s palate. Perhaps the best news of all is that Exhale seem to accomplish their brutal-yet-catchy sound as easily as putting one foot in front of the other and walking down the street. In other words, this beautiful cacophony of sound, which somehow manages to come across as being rather organized and flowing (albeit at mach speed), seems to emanate from this band rather organically and without the slightest hint at being forced. It just seems to be the language that Exhale speaks.

The riffs on Blind are truly compelling, the pace is unrelenting and the tone is about as heavy as one could imagine, and yet the listener tends to not only feel strangely energized by the whole experience (as opposed to exhausted), but often will find oneself tapping a foot or a finger along with the beat during the more rhythmic sections of the music (of which there are many). Selecting highlights from this abum is rather difficult, since every track is basically excellent, but tracks such as World of Hate, Anger and Propaganda seem to possess perhaps a little something extra in terms of the proverbial “je ne sais quoi”.

Simply stated, Exhale’s Blind is outstanding grindcore, and in a genre where speed-for-the-sake-of-speed or insanity-for-the-sake-of-insanity can often be the norm, this band solidly picks up the mantle which was unfortunately and prematurely lain down by fellow countrymen Nasum and shows the world that the United States’ Pig Destroyer isn’t the only band on the block that can make grindcore sound so fast and brutal, yet highly memorable and compelling.

“ about as heavy as one could imagine ”

Tracklist: Edge / World of Hate / Anger / Turning Blind / Propaganda / Sick Addiction / Scream / Fools / Crushed / Swallow / Parasiter / Humanism / Paperwings / Erased / Spytillbaka

Written by Chris Poling
More: 2010, Albums, Black Metal, Exhale