Review
Gridlink
Orphan

My money is on the simple fact that it will take you longer to read this than it will to actually listen to Orphan, the latest album from the estimable grind group Gridlink (their pedigree alone is enough to warrant paying attention to the music this outfit is creating now) and that is not a knock on the album at all; in fact, if this were any longer, listeners heads would more than likely explode from the brash power and energy that zips by in under fifteen minutes (even if you own the LP version that includes both GridLink albums, Amber Grey and Orphan, you still get that break from flipping the record over on the turntable). With an expanded lineup (Ted Patterson of Human Remains and Burnt By The Sun and his fellow former Human Remains compatriot Steve Procopio, who also did time in the live version of Discordance Axis join Bryan Fajardo, Kill the Client and ex Phobia Takafumi Matsubara, of Mortalized and Hayaino Daisuki, and Jon Chang, Hayaino Daisuki and formerly of Discordance Axis), GridLink seemingly set out to blaze a similar but more refined path with their latest effort.

Dear god though is this album ever a blistering slab of technical grind assassination to the ears of whoever is brave enough to slap the LP on their turntable or the CD player into their stereo; the technical precision of this batch of tracks is impressive and leaves one’s head spinning for quite a bit (actually, playing it back to back to back while I close my eyes makes me feel like I am on some crazy rollercoaster). The whole Orphan record is an absolute blur of technical precision that includes all of the tricks and musical wizardry that one can expect that has heard the previous GridLink album but with a few more new tricks, like the almost death growls in the title track; somehow the band is even tighter on this album as well, to the point that I am unsure of if I have ever heard a grind album so precise while still being every bit as devastating as any grind album ever made prior (again, they may exist, but I have never heard them).

Without compunction I can honestly say that Orphan is one of my favorite grind albums to ever assault my ears while at the same time have no qualms about calling this one of the arguably best albums ever to be produced from the genre; words can do no real justice to the intensity and ferociousness of the twelve songs that attack listeners during the course of the album, and it definitely is a piece of music that is amazing in its technical performances.