One of my favorite albums so far this year – Magrudergrind‘s II – is also one of the few that, for me, is fully realized. Plenty of bands have been releasing solid or above-average material over the last few weeks, but none are really operating at the level that this long-running Brooklyn-via-Maryland extreme act is. The album slaps when you want it to, is catchy in the right spurts, feels played rather than tracked to perfection, and, like, sounds great. It’s weird to say that about a grind album, but engineer Kurt Ballou and the band found a way to make such extreme, violent music actually satisfying to listen to in a sonic sense.
We caught up with the band at the Gibson New York Showroom a couple weeks back and got down on some riffs. We’re stoked to premiere a playthrough by guitarist R.J. Ober of “Black Banner,” one of my favorite songs on the album. Check it out, boys:
II drops February 12 via Relapse. Secure your copy here.
