CIRCLE OF DEAD CHILDREN „Zero Comfort Margin”

Music: Grindcore
Country: USA
Website: http://www.circleofdeadchildrem.com

Earache Records

Duration: 20:20
Cool Songs: take your pick!

As far as my records show, ‘Zero Comfort Margin’ is album number four for this Pennsylvania crew. Circle of Dead Children are a rather prolific grind act, but then again when your latest album contains only 20 minutes of music spread over 15 separate entities, I don’t suppose its all that difficult to roll out a new full length year after year.

Yeah, this is one nasty piece of work. Originally released earlier this year on the Willowtip label, ‘Zero Comfort Margin’ has been re-released via the union Willowtip has formed with Earache. Bigger label means bigger distribution; World wide in fact. Most Grindcore fans will know the name ‘Circle of Dead Children’ and whilst I’ve haven’t followed their career all that intently, I do remember being fairly taken with their Necropolis Records debut a few years back. ‘Zero Comfort Margin’ doesn’t exactly suggest a hell of a lot of progression has gone on, but as a Grindcore album, this is still worthy of investigation. Be warned though, it has one serious flaw!

The strange thing about ‘ZCM’ is that the recording was originally completed in June 2004, but then the band re-entered the studios in Feb 2005 to re-do/re-record some tracks. Unfortunately, this has resulted in a rather uneven final mix. Even with Steve Austin (Today is the Day) at the production helm, ‘ZCM’ doesn’t exactly ‘hit’ with the intensity that a Grindcore album should. As much as ‘CODC’ play all the right Grindcore cards stylistically – and theirs is a fairly rudimentary grind template – the production that has been afforded ‘ZCM’ does their song writing no favours whatsoever. I’m not sure what the band thinks of the final results, but ‘ZCM’ is extremely thin and distant in all aspects. The guitars have been rendered lifeless in terms of power and intensity and as for the ‘bass notes’….what fucking bass notes!! ‘ZCM’ sounds like it was recorded with all ‘Treble’ effects on eleven! It’s shrill and overtly noisy. As a result, CODC don’t come across anywhere near as fierce as they should or have achieved on previous releases.

If you can tolerate the production hatchet job that has been affored ‘ZCM’ you’ll find CODC doing what they have always done – blasting speed, churning power chords technical riff flurries and those oh so typical squealing pig, ultra low growling vocals. None of what they do is remotely original (Grindcore being possibly one of the more limited genre in extreme music) and there are better GC bands around, but I’m sure most die hard CODC fans will be pleased with this. In fact, they’ll probably love the fact that this doesn’t have a perfect polished production; the shittier, noisier, the better. As for inviting new listeners to the table, the production of ‘ZCM’ alone will keep most at bay. It’s nasty stuff indeed, but I’d be looking for a more complete sound next time.

note: 5.5

Tracklist

forward through the copper sun
zero comfort margin
no tears fall through hollow eye sockets
chemical goat
whimper
android (120 ampere opiate)
host (age)
bohemian grave
the system as the master deceiver
born on a bombshell
strip naked for the killer
a homage to tombstone granite
footprints in fire
playdumb (hideous mangleus cover)
for black eyes only a.k.a. depopulate: tears of illuminati