Over the course of 15 years and seven albums, Norway’s Beaten to Death have been rewriting the rules of grindcore. Whether it’s through an almost clean and mostly distortionless guitar tone, their shattering of scene tropes or a career-long refusal to put limits on their inveterate sense of humour, the band have never failed to ruffle the feathers of those willing to listen as they continually add melody, absurdity and iconoclastic sarcasm to killer riffs, intense blasting and off-kilter storytelling. We may still be a couple months away from the release of the band’s seventh full-length, Vntrve, but Mas-Kina, the band’s label, has kicked the promotional machine into early gear with the advance release of singles and teasers, one of which we’re previewing here today. A much better plan than previous records when, upon completing an album, the band would issue their music with little attention paid to scheduling and less paid to planning.
Says the band about “The Tolerator”: “When coming up with stories for our lyrics we often end up telling them through a protagonist or antagonist [lens] which is very often an anti-hero or a sad and pathetic figure that comes uncomfortably close to our own miserable selves at times. Yes, we are an emo band that put our lives on display for YOUR entertainment. For ‘The Tolerator’ we investigate how being a tolerant human being can go too far. So much so that our hero just keeps on tolerating and tolerating absolutely everything. He even justifies being so good at never protesting and accepting whatever comes his way that he sees it as a superpower. This is also a song where we acknowledge the important position of the saxophone in grindcore history, from Siege, through Naked City to Brutal Truth and Napalm Death. Although our boy Bendik Brænne chose a slightly less free jazzy approach than what is normally accepted as grindcore sax. This suits us well.”
What they also fail to mention is that at 2:54, it’s the longest song to appear on Vntrve, which you can pre-order and further check out at the links below.
Bandcamp
Tidal
YouTube
The post Track Premiere: Grindcore Nutbars Beaten to Death Test Tolerance with “The Tolerator” appeared first on Decibel Magazine.
