Band: The Right Wing Conspiracy (United States) Album: Alternate World (2011) Genre: Grindcore “Freedom is dying! Take it for granted!” With these lines, The Right Wing Conspiracy were able to attract my attention. I mean, which band, let alone an American band, writes this? I thought they were all about freedom and shit, but these guys seem to have some conscience. Together with some tough ass Grindcore, this might make for something interesting.

Don’t ask me how I found these guys, but before I knew it I had a CD posted to my address. Originally, I was only looking for some youtube video’s which contained some studio songs, to present to you guys in a news article, but vocalist/guitarist Rafael Ortiz thought it necessary for me to look at the whole thing, which I did with pleasure.

As I discovered later these guys are Christians. Well, I guess the proverb “birds of a feather flock together” applies here. However, one should not be expecting some Satanist-bashing, hating on black people, extremely conservative band from the Bible Belt. No, The Right Wing Conspiracy’s hate flows out two ways. Corrupt Christians, as well as poser-Satanists, as well as the ordinary American demanding tolerance, are all sent to hell for what they do.

Musically, the album is not your average Grindcore. Alternate World is not drowned in blast beats, and with songs like Partisan and Tingle Down Your Leg, some beats are even memorable. Of course there is no lead guitar work on this, but who minds anyways. The guitar playing is far from sloppy, and it seems to form a perfect unity with the bass, which is audible, but not taking over.
So, on Alternate World there are three factors. The guitars, the drums and the vocals. In between the first two, there seems to be a huge hole. This is mainly to blame on the drum machine they’re using, which sounds sterile and tight, while the guitars are drowned in distortion. Like the guitars do on Conan’s debut EP which we discussed yesterday, the vocals form a thick, suffocating blanket over the music. However, this makes the contrast between drums and guitars even bigger.

But no shame! The song writing is good, even excellent to Grindcore standards. No two songs are the same. Every song is different, rock solid and contains a twist to keep the listener awake. There’s even a melody line in the title track!
Lyrically, I have some mixed feelings about Alternate World. Yes, they have an original concept with their Punk-ish attitude to society, but they are not as poetic as I’d hoped. However, this shouldn’t bother too many Metal/Core-heads, since I often hear that lyrics are not important when it comes to music.

In conclusion, I’d like to say that Alternate World is a wonderful piece of Grindcore. The original concept (that is within the realm of Grindcore), together with the excellent songwriting and the more than decent musicianship make for something worth getting.

My Grade: 8.5/10
Buy this when:

Tags: American, grindcore

This entry was posted on Friday, December 9th, 2011 at 10:42 am and is filed under Reviews. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.