It seems like every two years or so an album will make my year end list and then the band will break up before I even publish it. The last two I can remember were Kalas (Matt Pyke!) and ASRA. This year it's Maruta. The band decided to call it quits this November, just 8 months after releasing the mindfuckingly good Forward Into Regression (Willowtip). FIR is a beautifully brutal blend of head-spinning grind and straight up pits-of-hell death metal. Much like the vocals of Exhumed (low and high), Maruta vocalist Mitchell Luna utilizes the same duality. The difference being, the lows are lower and the highs are screechier. And Luna's transition from one to the other is incredibly jarring. In a good way. That style falls in nicely with the way the album transitions from riff to riff. For the most part it's very abrupt. There aren't many smooth edges (unlike #20). That schizo sound might be what sets it apart in my mind. Although, that's not usually not my preferred style of grindcore. Perhaps what makes Forward Into Regression appeal to me over other seemingly chaotic grind is the riffs themselves. Over the course of its 16 tracks the album bursts with killer riff after killer riff. It's unfortunate that such a promising band is done after only two albums. I guess the best we can hope for now is that the band goes backward into resurrection.
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