Intrusion from Ukrayne!
Gaz-66 Intrusion is a fast and punishing three pieces hailing from Ukraine. Ukraine isn’t one of those country you stumble upon very often when you talk about extreme music, the only bands I can recall from there are Necrocannibalistic Vomitorium, Cranium, Ebanath and Epicrise. Gaz-66 Intrusion delivers twelve songs splitted in two sessions. The first one is called Power Without Violence and is made with unreleased (at least I think they are) tracks, while the other one, called Death Tomorrow, is compiled with songs coming from the already published 3″ EP that goes by the same name, even if on that CD there were some more songs not featured on this vinyl. The line up for the two sessions is the same, with onyl the drummer changing. Let’s start from the A-Side, Power Without Violence. I think the music fits perfectly with the title. I don’t mean there’s no violence in these songs, but that you can definetely hear a powerviolence influence going on here but it always remains at a subtle level, making it a shade, a little vibe added to the music. The music. Gaz-66 Intrusion on this side delivers a massive amount of grindcore mixed with classic fastcore. The song are fast, blistering and the few slower parts are there just to make the faster ones more punishing. Phooey screams his lungs out with a sulphuric voice that perfectly fits with the fuzzy riffing of Spade, even if sometimes he goes to growl territories. When he screams he reminds me a bit Lugubrious from Haemorrhage, while the growling parts come directly from the mighty mid 90’s grindcore period. There are some cool groovy section that enhances the fastcore side of the band, like in Intellectual Apathy, while the ending of Bony And Lustful makes me think of the slow side of The Endless Blockade, connecting finally with the powerviolence influence that goes on in this record and making way for the B-Side. Death Tomorrow shows an harsher side of Gaz-66 Intrusion, with the powerviolence influence being way more prominent, cannibalizing the fastcore one. Songs are more brutal, more focused on tempo switching, stops, vocal alternation and so on. They sound like a more straight to the point version of Spazz, like Chris Dodge and Hirax Max jamming with Inaki from Denak. The more melodic parts displayed on Power Without Violence are gone, replaced by high octane acceleration and throat-cutting bass lines. Vocal wise the styles that are used are the same, but the alternation between screaming and growling is more prominent, making the comparison with classic powerviolence more fitting.
You can see this record as a split 7″ between fastcore Gaz-66 Intrusion and powerviolence Gaz-66 Intrusion, being the grindcore soil the glue between the two sides. I can see this record as a very good starting point form a band that deserves attention for the future. Powerviolence has always been a genre dominated by the American bands but some bands are popping out from Europe to add the Old World to the PV map. Gaz-66 Intrusion is surely one of those.
Co-released by 625 and Crucificados. Thanks to Steven / Crucificados for the record.
[[[And for those who are wondering (taken from band’s MySpace) :
“GAZ-66 (originally ГАЗ-66) is a Soviet 4×4 truck designed in 1962 and serial production from 1964. It had 2 tons carrying capacity, was aimed for moving through off-roads (2 active axis, system of autonomic tire pressure regulation) therefore it was used by Soviet Army, as well as in household and national economy. It had about 30 modifications, and after 30 years of being in wide use it became a legend of transportation. Beginning with mid-90ies it gave way to modern trucks, and in 1999 the last GAZ-66 was produced. Totally there were 965 941 pieces made. ” ]]]
Sore Throat, Nausea and Headache 