Serendipity – (noun) the occurrence and development of events by chance in a happy or beneficial way.
Also see: me scrolling on Bandcamp and being intrigued, pressing play, and being greeted with some refreshing, punishing, and enjoyable as fuck grindcore in the form of Smearing.
The Seattle based quartet, on the surface, seem to have some The Red Chord worship (or I may be projecting my own obsession). There is dissonance and harshness but buried within that is also a strong sense of how the fuck to write a snappy fucking tune. Smearing is five songs of hellscape-laden cacophony combined with evocative and disturbing lyrical imagery – aka a good fucking time.
From jump street, Smearing sets the tone for their sub-10 minute EP with “The Hill”. Feedback and a couple snare hits and instantly it’s “Welcome to Hell, motherfuckers!”. Even the first two lines of the song paint a descriptive albeit destitute picture.
The urn is overflowing
Community ashes, sprialing into the wind
Unrelenting as this opener is, the feedback at the end of the track slides us directly into “Afterwork” and more dissonance. The guitars begin with a riff that would feel at home in a death doom band’s arsenal but the drums (holy fuck, the drums) pound relentlessly, pushing the track further and further into madness. The song ends with a less than traditional breakdown wrapping up the song in a beautiful disease-ridden bow.
Musically, “Isolation Fetish” evokes Terrifyer-era Pig Destroyer (when JR and company seemed to lean more into writing fuller songs and also: boobies) The anger baked into the lyrics here is palpable. A disdain for those closest to you can provide the impetus for true fucking torture and that torture exudes across this song, culminating in the final “fuck it” at the end. Enough is enough, seemingly stated.
More feedback (are we sensing a theme here?) leads us into “Ethical Non-Morality”. Dare I say Napalm Death would approve? I dare say. A bit more straightforward riffage combined with some uptempo two step beats lends a nice slice of hardcore meat in this grind sandwich. That door quickly closes and once again the dissonance overlayed upon what can only be described as a human cyborg playing blast beats galore. All the while, screams of displacement and desensitization weave a tapestry of neglect. Fuck the system? Indeed
The culmination of this experience arrives in the form of “Brighter Future”. In a turn of events we’re met with a more mid-tempo beat to carry us head-nodding into a crushing verse. And prior to another “don’t push the red button” speed intensifying type of moment, we all get to scream:
I dedicate my next step
And every one after it
To stomping every yuppie neck
And calling it progress
It could be a result of the constant bludgeoning, but it feels as though this is where Smearing is at their fastest and most intense. A train speeding out of control until it wraps back around to the beat and chord progressions of the first verse. And then it just ends.
The intensity of Smearing is akin to those carnival rides that pinned you against the wall and you were forced to hang there against your will until the ride was over. Will you throw up? Who knows. Was it worth it? Abso-fucking-lutely. Time not being a factor here, it is well worth your while (be you a fan of extreme music) to listen to this whole EP. It is fluid, it is evocative, it is (I hope) the very surface of what we can expect from Smearing in their brighter future. Where’s my fucking shades?
- Fav song: “Brighter Future”
FFO: grindcore, blast beats, tortured screams, PNW, rain, black coffee
Follow this fucking link to listen and while you’re there, fucking buy something from the band:
Windmills, Spinkicks, Headbangs, Push Pits 
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