Agoraphobic Nosebleed (who will henceforth be referred to as ANb) are kind of like a funhouse mirror, they take all of the real-life grime, filth, hate and insanity in this world and reflect it back at you in the dizzying form of heavily distorted 30 second to a minute-long grind songs. Frozen Corpse is ANb's second full length album, and only a small sample of the band's prolific discography (primarily consisting of splits and EPs). But really it's just an aural assault of 38 compounded, light-speed tracks that seem to be written with the sole purpose of disorientating you. Typically, when a 14-second long ANb song randomly shows up on shuffle while I'm driving with an uninitiated listener in my car, that person responds with something like "Oh my god wat?" before tucking and rolling out of my moving vehicle.
ANb, along with grindcore godfathers Napalm Death, were my first introduction to the genre. Napalm Death sounded similar to the death metal I had already familiarized myself with, but ANb were something out of left field. The first thing I noticed was the use of a drum machine that was playing what sounded like 10, 000 BPMs. It was like a hurricane of drums played over some of the most ferocious guitar riffs I had heard. And how could I forget the lyrics, some of which I could occasionally pick out, and just end up scratching my head over. "MEDICAL MARIJUANA ABANDONED FOR MARINOL ANTHRAX INHALERS!" or "THAW THE QUAALUDES FROM DISNEY'S CRYOGENIC HUSK!" Many of these delightful little lines are thankfully unintelligible or buried in a hailstorm of crazy instrumentation and noise. However, these incoherent, hate-filled ramblings are a good match to ANb's musical stylings, and they add to the dizzying effect of their songs, all of which gives the album a sense of angry, frantic urgency.
Overall, this album is a highlight of ANb's huge discography. It shows off some impressive drum programming (which has only improved to the point of sounding pretty much real on albums like Agorapocalypse) and crazy fast grindcore riffs paired with completely insane vocals. If that's what you want from a grind record then look no further.
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