Bastardiser

Ouch. This is some ferocious stuff. Bastardiser takes the pissed-off fury of hardcore and head-butts it together with the precision of chugga-chugga-style post-thrash metal along with a caustic industrial/noise feel at points (though without any electronics). Some of the songs, such as "The Whip," veer off in a hyperactive, but still heavily precise math metal direction (somewhat comparable to Converge or Botch), while others, most notably the ten-minute-long "Crouch," settle into a repetitive, slow-paced groove and just grind away relentlessly. Knut comes across as equally at home in each of these styles. It is worth noting that this CD was already several years old when it first came out in the U.S. in early 2001, and as a result it was not seen as the most groundbreaking thing around compared to Botch, Converge, Cave-In, or other bands in that general territory. Keeping that in mind, Bastardiser has still held up well as an example of tight, intelligent, aggressively played hardcore metal and should satisfy fans of the genre.