Several words come to mind when listening to a release like this. Words like gnarly, raw, brutal, frenzied and more. This is music that you can imagine serial killers doing their grisly work to.
Having said that, this is no mindless punk/thrash release. There is actually a bit of nous behind what this Melbourne five-piece are doing, and a mastery of a number of different styles within the extreme music spectrum. So much so, that they are actually a little difficult to categorise, for those to whom such things are important, and the term ‘extreme music’ is the only term that feels appropriate. This is far too broad these days of course, so what to do? Let’s look at it more closely.
King Parrot are about as extreme as you can get whilst remaining (somewhat!) coherent, but they are too punky to be considered grindcore. At the same time, they are far too brutal to be a punk band. Punk/thrash maybe? Not really, for sometimes their music actually has a very nice groove to it, amid the frenzy. I think we need to simply stick with extreme heavy music.
The album is a vicious collection of 11 songs, but it whizzes past and is done in EP time (22 minutes). Do the math, that’s two minutes a song. And that’s absolutely acceptable for music like this as too much could cause a severe migraine/aneurysm/seizure. Indeed, it could very well bite your head clean off.
Even more than that though, these guys know precisely what they are doing. It is a calculated piece of extreme art, with strong musicianship and a production job skilfully left just on the right side of raw and dirty. And the insane vocals of leader screamer Matt Young are just plain throat-rippingly scary. Be warned, this is not music for the faint of heart. This album is a very nasty piece of work, and that’s exactly how they like it.
BY ROD WHITFIELD
Best Track: Bozo
If You Like These, You’ll Like This: BLOOD DUSTER, HATEBREED, FUCK…I’M DEAD
In a Word: Anarchic
