Saving the planet doesn’t have to involve green tea and cardboard straws. There are many ways to express the sentiment – and, boy, we all know that it’s one that needs to be expressed. Italian grindcore outfit Stench of Profit have chosen a barrage of fast and angry outbursts as their approach – and this record is ample proof that it works.
In my view, qualification for the grindcore genre requires insane speed, sludgy guitars and a refusal to play for more than two and half minutes. ‘No Place To Hide’ does all that but its core sound is definitely closer to the unharnessed aggression of brutal death metal. Add in the spiritual electro-utopia of the intro and outro and we have quite a record on our hands.
From the blistering clatter of ‘Ruins’ to the interesting use of the theme song from US 1950s nuclear warfare propaganda film ‘Duck and Cover’ (about a turtle named Bert) at the close of the intensely weighty ‘There Won’t Be A Place To Hide’, this desperate message of hope is well and truly put through the wringer. Each breakneck riff and guttural roar is precisely executed yet combines to reveal an out-of-control, unstoppable chaos that is intrinsic to the subject matter at hand. And that’s clever.
It’s good to get a bit feisty about things that are wrong. ‘No Place To Hide’ does that with knives and, given the apathy of vast swathes of the world’s population, it’s reassuring to know that the passion to reverse this eco-trend is strong in grindcore circles. If Napalm Death were in charge, these guys would make a very good case to head up their Department for the Environment.
8/10