Being that I had never heard of either of these bands I had to do a little homework to find out a little something about them. I came to find out that these are 2 of Poland's popular Grindcore bands. This CD is split into 2 parts. The first 3 songs are by NYIA and the other 6 are by Antigama.
And the entire EPis under 15 minutes long. Interesting….
Ok, first is NYIA. With only 3 songs on this EP and 1 of them being under a minute, they get right to the point. NYIA are very syncopated with a lot of changes going on. Reminds me of a sort of Robert Fripp meets Meshuggah type of marriage with a very heavy groove that is infectious. A Heavy Prog Grindcore with both screaming and sung vocals, NYIA also manage to throw a lot of ambient & dissonant noises and sounds in these 3 tunes. The songs are called, "Of The Will", "Of Power", and "Of Those". There is a lot going on here for sure. What's interesting is that over the 3 songs, there is one consistent theme that weaves its way through each. For as quick as those 3 songs go by, I liked it. NYIA have an interesting sound and concept here.
On to Antigama.
With 6 songs and none of them clocking in over 2 minutes long, Antigama pounds the listener into submission with both Death Metal type ranting with supersonic double bass drumming finishing up the pummeling to the cerebral cortex. These 6 songs are all super short, as I said before, with no song being over 2 minutes long, so the damage is done at the speed of light, hard and fast. They do show some high points with "The Trio Infernal" and "Torture", both of these tunes are instrumentals but they go by so quickly that you'd hardly even know it. Antigama also use a bunch of sounds and noises to create that "thrown in a blender" type of bombastic sonic assault. Not for the faint of heart.
This double band EP is an interesting concept and listen. I enjoyed NYIA's groove laden Progressive Metal overtones quite a bit and wish there was more than 6 minutes of them on this CD. Antigama is however a total acquired taste, but if you like your Metal or Grindcore served with a side of broken glass, then this might be for you.
NYIA-4 Stars
Antigama-1 Star
Track Listing
- Of The Will-NYIA
- Of Power-NYIA
- Of Those-NYIA
- Beyond Me-Antigama
- Nature-Antigama
- Only-Antigama
- Torture-Antigama
- ADV-Antigama
- The Trio Infernal-Antigama