...we'll be there ready to thrash

Kill Life W/ Mike IX - D.E.A (Dead End American) 7'' Flexi
2011, A389

Yeah, it's a flexi, which means it's basically made for the vinyl nerds and asshole collectors. A bendy piece of pastic the width of a hair and with a magical ability to disappear for years and years, hidden behind bookshelves and underneath seldom moved rugs. Either way it's a nifty format that imposes the need for brevity and succinctness from whoever is on it. This disc only has one track, titled D.E.A, short for Dead End American, and it's my first aquaintance with the entity that is Kill Life, a band purported to feature members from Magrudergrind, Fucked Up, Crass and Integrity. I'm nowhere near certain who is actually on this record. The info that is available is scarce, vague and, probably, purposefully conflicting, but there seems to be at least a concensus that Dwid Hellion from Integrity is among its members. Here they pair up with Mike from EyeHateGod and Arson Anthem for one three minute track that starts off with a rather horrendous vocal rendition of Amazing Grace that slowly gets drowned in feedback and finally moves into a slow plodding heavy intro of sorts which erupts into full on hardcore about fifty seconds into the song. The song proper is only about a minute long with a definite 80s hardcore feel to it, with fast hooks and a ferocious pace. Think Negative Approach meets DRI with a snarly screaming vocal style, that sort of feels like it could be Mike but I could easily be wrong here. Since it's only one song it is by default very memorable, but it quickly degenerates into that Amazing Grace stuff it started with which kind of ruins the flow of the song. But I guess that was the intention, for some reason. I'm sort of torn here. On one hand the disc is two thirds pointless garbage (humor, I guess?) but the important third is pretty great so...I dunno.


Kill Life/33 - Split 7''
2011, All the way live records

Here Kill Life has paired up with brittish thugs 33 for a cool little split, where 33 kick things off with two short tracks of dirty, energetic slightly metallic hardcore with a really awesome dual vocal attack. There is a definte punk vibe to their style, as well as a bit of a power violence hue, that is only partly due to the riffing; it could be the stripped down recording as well as the way the vocals are sung/screamed. The first track, Dark Light is an awesome bouncy midpaced number with lots of cool hooks and twists and an almost screamo-ish touch at times. Parts of the song remind me of some of the wierder hardcore bands from the Alternative Tentacles roster, like Victims Family for instance. Next up is Coke Party, which is a 30 second rager that sounds like it could have been recorded by any number of the better late 80's crossover/hardcore acts, like DRI or their ilk. It's really cool and memorable but I prefer the style presented on the opener. On the flipside we have three really short tracks by Kill Life that blend into each other. First up is Humanity Jihad where Dwid Hellion barks over blast beats and a repeating riff, that eventually breaks down into a short sludgy chorus of sorts. All of it is over in about thirty seconds. Next up is A Change Is Gonna Come which also is a smoking fast track, but less blastbeat-y, with a great chorus that, unless my ears decieve me and I've deciphered them wrong, would have the Secret Service at your door in a heart beat if you wrote the lyrics out on the interwebs. This song is even shorter than the one before and it and it segues into Chimpanzee Eats Friend which has a 911 call of someone's friend getting attacked by a chimp, playing over a slow plodding jam. All in all a pretty damn awesome display of hardcore chops but I think they could do even better and they should've skipped the last track, cause all it does is ruin the flow of their side of this otherwise really decent split. I do think 33 has the more solid material here though and they don't throw in a lot of surplus bullshit that bogs down the music.