Where There Is Power There Is Always Resistance

Most bands that fall under the general headings of "grindcore" or "black metal" stick with the usual "let's creep out the grownups" themes: your zombies, your beheadings, your celebrations of Our Dark Lord Satan, that sort of thing. Winnipeg-based grindcore specialists Malefaction really don't have time for that sort of juvenilia, because there are regimes to change. Quite possibly the only grindcore band to make leftist sociopolitical critique their primary lyrical theme, Malefaction fall immediately into a trap that a moment's thought would have made quite obvious: you could have Noam Chomsky himself write your lyrics, but when you sing them in a voice that sounds like a constipated Muppet, you're just gonna sound kinda silly. (There's a reason why all those other bands stick with the comic-book-level material, y'know.) While their hearts are certainly in the right place lyrically, Malefaction rarely rise above the level of grindcore cliché on a musical level, and the D.I.Y.-level production and mixing don't give the album the bottom-heavy roar that one can normally count on to pull this style of music through. Malefaction get a gold star for effort, but the execution is unfortunately lacking.