Asura – Baby Detox

As I pack my things for an upcoming trip to visit the world in just under seventeen minutes, I begin to wonder and think that something isn’t right. The air shouldn’t be this cold, the sirens that I begin to hear in the distance shouldn’t be as loud as they are and my body shouldn’t be feeling as numb as it does. After some thought and taking some medicine that will hopefully wake my body from it’s slumber, I slowly move my way to the kitchen window to see if I can tell why the sirens are going off. On my way to the window, I stop by the record player and put on something that I wasn’t to sure the neighbors would enjoy but with my “let’s grind the fuck out” attitude and the way my body was acting, I could care less what anyone thought at the time. The record is “Baby Detox” and is from a Oklahoma/Arkansas trio that do nothing but bring the off the wall grind back to it’s prime with below-par production, which is a great thing in my eyes, along with this feel that “Baby Detox” is a steak with zero fat and all meat.

Moving closer and closer to the window, I realize that things have changed drastically in my house. The pictures turn upside along with the few crosses that I have throughout the house and all the doors & windows begin to slam at a high rate of speed. Was this all happening because of “Baby Detox”? Could a grind record really have this kind of impact and so much that my world could be turned upside down, literally? As I rush to the front door to try to make my escape, the second track, “Strung Up By Your Pinky Toe”, starts to play over the speakers in my living room. Feeling the need to hurry, I grab my backpack off the table and leap for the door, only crashing into it because the house decided to slam it so my face would bash against it. I learn very quickly that with the blasting, ultra-fast riffs and drums that could shake a football stadium, I have to be one step ahead of this record because if I’m not, “Baby Detox” might just slaughter me and make me look like small child on the cover of the record.

“I Raped The Pope”, the fourth track on the record, is when things really start make sense as my house decides it wants to do nothing but harm me and put me in a death-like coma forever. With Asura, you get this overwhelming sense of multiple genres, although grind is the huge one, the punk and doom influences still seem to peek out at times as if they were stalking you, just as my house was doing to me. As I recover from the bashing into the door moment I just had, I grab my backpack and rush upstairs (I know, you never run upstairs and trust me I know that but I was in the heat of the moment so don’t judge me). As I reach the top of the stairs, the whole house begins to shake in ways that no house should. Finally, I realize that the fifth track and title track, “Baby Detox”, is what’s playing in the living room. The one track that I’ve learned over the last couple days is more original than anything else I’ve heard in the last couple years. Brilliant use of vocals along with the production that, again, is below-par but it honestly makes the record what it is.

Looking for an escape from the top of the stairs, the only way I can survive this hell hole of a place is to try to make it outside into the world of fresh air and beautiful flowers. Nothing could go wrong, right? Climbing out the window and onto the roof of my house, the sight of filth and horror is sprayed all across the sky. Is this the end? Am I actually going to die and be ripped to shreds like an animal at a slaughter house? As I take a deep breath and swallow a huge gulp of spit, the final track, “Dick In A Dead Cop”, begins to shatter everything around me. One of the more chaotic tracks on the record with its speed of sound riffs and very low-key sections that sneak their way into your ear drums, “Dick In A Dead Cop” was going to be my funeral song and not because I wanted it to be but because I was about to be killed, in a horrible way.

So, what’s the moral of the story besides that I leave you hanging with my reviews to an extent? Asura delivers some of the most original grind that I’ve ever heard. It’s not your average, run of the mill, “let’s play as fast as we can”, bullshit. It’s haunting, bone-chilling and talent like you just can’t find these days, especially in an area such as mine. “Baby Detox” is a one in a million and if you think you’ve heard the best of the best in grind today, check yourself and realize that those bands may be talented but they keep doing the same thing over and over. Asura – The only band that will matter in the coming years, as long as they stay together and keep pushing forward.

Listen to “Strung Up By Your Pinky Toe” below:

Official Facebook. Download the record here.