Cranial Putrefaction – Occhio Per Occhio

After a split with Destroy Yourself in 2024, Italian band Cranial Putrefaction finally released their debut full-length album, Occhio Per Occhio, co-released digitally by the band and Grindwar Records.

Two years of hard work have gone into this grindcore masterpiece, and it seems it was totally worth it. The band demonstrate a vast variety of influences, from crustgrind to more brutish noisegrind and very strong powerviolence elements. The result is a great record that has something for everyone, while maintaining the DIY spirit and ethics of the genre. It also tackles serious topics such as capitalist realism, the potential for change, and a burning desire for freedom from authority and tyranny.

Consisting of 23 brutal symphonies of DIY grindcore that rarely go beyond the one-minute mark, Occhio Per Occhio tickles the listener and even overwhelms with its eclectic influences and different compositional approaches. The album starts with “Agente Arancio,” one of the longer songs and, in my opinion, a track that encapsulates most of the sounds the band incorporate into the album. It has slow and sludgy powerviolence parts, catchy crust punk riffs, and explosions of grinding barbarity, preparing us for the rest of the record with its compact dynamics.

Vocalist Davide is in possession of an impressive range of beastly vocals, from ghastly shrieks to brutal low growls, typical powerviolence shouts à la Infest when the moment is right, and at times, something more death metal-ish, which gives the album even more variety. The guitar work of Ale is excellent. He is an absolute machine for grind riffs, delivering fast outbursts of noise, switching to slower, sludgier parts, and, when the time is right, crusty riffage and even small solos that give the album more complexity. There is not one weak or boring moment. Even if you only listen to the guitar, you will hear different genres, each of them done with an original twist.

The noisegrind passages flow neatly into the darker, slower parts and the more punk-driven riffs, only to return again, sometimes in a complex manner where the switches between styles seem effortless. When the guitars return to brutal noise outbursts, you can’t believe how easy he makes it look. Spectacular guitar and vocal work.

As for the rhythm section, it doesn’t hold back either. The genre-typical buzzsaw bass tone is always there and graciously supports the maniacal drumming of Giusanni. The production emphasizes the loudness and brutality of the bass lines, while the drumming is absolutely fierce. Giusanni is a beast of a musician, as such fast switches between slow and fast parts, crust/d-beat passages, and barbaric noisegrind eruptions require a level of talent and practice that few drummers can achieve. He manages to shift between blastbeats, slow-fast powerviolence parts, crust punk rhythms, and even some off-beat moments where he really shows his masterful abilities.

Your memory is a weapon, keep your mind lit

Think back to all the attempts eliminated and failed

We will be the plague that rises eternally from the ashes of your abuses.

The lyrics explore a variety of topics, such as the atrocities and aberrations of a civilization in decay, the modern human condition of apathy, hopelessness, and alienation, and the insufferable abuses we inflict on nature and each other. However, this bleak reality also creates the conditions for an uprising and a flourishing of the independent mind, taking root in the ashes of Judeo-Christian civilization and the encompassing techno-feudalism.

Find the record through the band’s official Bandcamp page and Grindwar Records. Combining fierce noisegrind, crustgrind, powerviolence, and death metal with a very strong sense of originality, the band appear as an elite example of the current grindcore genre, offering something for every fan of this type of noise pollution. Most importantly, it makes us think through its dark anti-civilizational themes while preserving the genre’s crucial DIY ethics and values. NOISE NOT WAR!