Ah, grindcore. In what other genre could a band put out a 7” single featuring ten tracks? Anyhow, here we have the latest release from Diuretic. Inspired by genre greats Terrorizer and Napalm Death, Diuretic pull no punches on this hyper-fast exercise in brutality. A four-piece noise machine, the band comprises guitarist Alex Chips, drummer Pete, and bassist Rose O’Malley (also known for her work in Sir Babygirl) and is fronted by the awesome talent that is Alyssa Rorke, making her first foray into heavy music (not that you’d know it from her devastating performance). With sweet, DIY sleeve art, a production job that sounds like someone took a razor to your speakers, and a dark sense of humour underpinning a title that suggests the band work in the ACME weapons division, Zero Days Without Incident is something of a must for grindcore fans.
It opens with the hard riffing OSHA Supersoldier, which wrongfoots the listener with some seriously heavy opening chords before exploding into the sickest outpouring of grind this side of Pig Destroyer. With the slower passages anchoring the track, it’s a hell of an introduction, although it’s soon displaced by the sub-one-minute fury of Forklift Certified Early Retirement. The theme of workplace health and safety (er, what? – Ed.) continues with the cyclical riffing of Injury Marathon, which sounds like Napalm Death playing Meshuggah covers. Four tracks in (and almost as many minutes), and Alyssa gets to showcase her brutal range, as she slips from harrowing shriek to guttural roar and back. Titled Emergency Contact Contacted, the band even drop in a gnarly groove at its conclusion. The first half wraps up with the simmering rage of Casualty Friday, which casually batters the listener into submission, and then ups the ante considerably, as Pete plays havoc with the tempo.
The second half is hardly less visceral. Hurt On the Job? Explodes in a welter of hammer-blow riffs and chiming dissonance, the band dispatching the piece in just 40-seconds. The band continue their PSA with Metal In The Microwave and, once again, it’s Alyssa who dominates proceedings, for all the acrobatic manoeuvres of the band – her voice scraping across your senses like a rusty hacksaw blade. In contrast, Ambulance Chaser allows Rose’s bass the odd moment to creep through the mix – not always a given with music this frantic. The HR Rep Is Dead has just a touch of doom in its grimy riffage, although it’s delivered (of course) at breakneck pace. It leaves the longest song of the set, all 1:48 of it, to see this dastardly little EP out. Titled Psychotic Nerve Damage (possibly also the occupational hazard of listening to this evil-little-bugger-of-an-EP at too-high volumes), it provides a suitably searing finale to this nasty gem.
Grindcore at its best is both hyper fast and skull crushingly heavy. Here, the latter element is aided no end by the band’s tendency to drop the speed for just long enough to deliver a face-melting groove, before racing off into the distance once more. It’s an effective tactic. Meanwhile, with the talented Alyssa deploying an astonishing range, and the band delivering ten-tracks in almost as many minutes, there’s little here to outstay its welcome. Indeed, the EP is over before you realise it, leaving you with the sensation that you’ve been subjected to a whirlwind of violence, but you’ve yet to identify where the actual injuries are. In short, this is ace – buy it. 9/10
