Discography releases are a great thing, when they are deserved, that is. When a band has only released material on vinyl or defunct labels and it has long since gone out of print, a discography release on CD is great. On the other hand, if a band has only been around a short while and their releases (vinyl or CD) are still readily available, a discography release is quite senseless.
On Blood Migration: The Year One Collection, Fight Pretty deliver 40 tracks - yes you read that correctly - that blend together grindcore, metal, and punk into one pummeling monstrosity. Primarily, Fight Pretty can be summed up with the following formula: lots of double bass and frequent blast beats + chaotic and frenzied riffage in odd time signatures + boatloads of scathing screams. The resulting sound would be like throwing The Locust, Converge, and Pig Destroyer into a blender and pouring out the contents into a wicked chalice decked out with dragons.
Unfortunately there is a problem; the problem with these songs being that when Fight Pretty does find something that sounds good, they quickly abandon it. "Blood Migration," "Cut Throat," and "Moneybag Nation" all have some great parts to them, but they are quickly tossed aside for chaos. Either that or the song just ends abruptly. It's like they've run out of ideas 1/3 of the way through almost every song. So I guess these fellas need to work on their songwriting skills a tad. They do have the knack to write some good tunes - "Strong Enough..." is solid all the way through.
Included among the vast number of songs here is a cover of "We Bite" by The Misfits. The cover is definitely in a different league than the original; basically apply the Fight Pretty sound to the original and that's how it turned out. I definitely wasn't expecting to hear them cover The Misfits, but it was a nice treat.
As a whole Blood Migration: The Year One Collection is a great piece of plastic for Fight Pretty fans around the world. I'm just not sure there is a huge demand for a discography release just yet.
