Best known as the drummer and sometime guitarist in Dallas thrash band Power Trip, Austin’s Chris Ulsh has spent the last decade or so exploring variations on a simple truth: metal and punk are forces that work best in league with each other. He is efficient, deadly, and never starving for riffs, whether working with pit-ready thrash, noisy punk, chugging powerviolence or good ol’ Venom-esque raunch. If it’s fast and loud, he’ll make gold. The longest-running of Ulsh’s many projects, Mammoth Grinder, hits the sweet spot between death metal and hardcore, particularly the tougher American varieties of both. The band was on ice for a while due to Power Trip’s intense touring commitments, but Ulsh has revived it for Cosmic Crypt, their fourth LP and first with two members of Iron Reagan, guitarist Mark Bronzino and drummer Ryan Parrish. Even with two-thirds of the band based in Richmond, the new album is an object lesson in exactly how Ulsh earned his reverence in Texas and beyond.
The biggest change to Mammoth Grinder’s approach this time is that Ulsh has switched to bass, leaving Bronzino to handle guitars. Perhaps as a result, Crypt doesn’t show much of the Swedish influence heard on 2009’s Extinction of Humanity or 2013’s Underworlds; they’ve exchanged buzzsaw guitar tones reminiscent of Entombed and Dismember for a more bass-heavy sound and deeper vocal delivery from Ulsh. That singing style, in turn, tips the LP further toward death metal, compared to past efforts where the group’s hardcore lineage was more noticeable. “Human Is Obsolete” and “Rotting Robes” are Mammoth Grinder at their most death metal yet, hitting with the force of an impenetrable phalanx. Elsewhere, “Molotov” opens with a floor-punching riff that would sound equally fitting coming from a bludgeoning death metal crew like Acephalix as it would a lean New York hardcore crew like Judge, ripping with a immediate cross-genre lizard-brain appeal.
The blown-out crust sound of Discharge’s foundational 1980s work remains another key spiritual influence on Mammoth Grinder. “Blazing Burst” feels as war-torn as that UK group’s nuclear-ravaged worlds; “Superior Firepower” combines crust’s noisier side with a feedback intro that immediately transitions into a relentless stomp. Ulsh’s spacey bass dive in “Blazing Burst” suggests another of his side projects, Impalers—it’s a lush flirtation in the middle of a minefield. Throughout the album, Bronzino prioritizes noise over technique in soloing, and his explosive entrances give Mammoth Grinder an unexpected dramatic flair.
One reason Crypt fits so effortlessly into the Mammoth Grinder canon is that the new lineup isn’t entirely new: Bronzino and Parrish were touring members in 2014, before Ulsh turned his focus to Power Trip. They’re ideal partners for Ulsh, as their background in Iron Reagan, a crossover thrash band, means they also value economy. Like the slew of new American death metal acts that came out starting at the beginning of this decade, this version of Mammoth Grinder takes from death metal’s faster and more brutish end, but it doesn’t fully fit into that or any stylistic niche. The simplicity heard here draws from Master; the ugliness brings to mind Autopsy; and none of the influences feel like they’re being hastily grafted together. Coincidentally, Crypt arrives not long after Slayer announced its “final” tour. Like those thrash greats’ classic Reign in Blood, this album presents a complete vision in a short running time, stirring metal and hardcore together into one giant, boiling cauldron.
