Everyone’s favourite not-so-friendly neighbourhood grit purveyour 8 Hour Animal returns to release their new album Kill Your Boss on the legendary filth distributor Sentient Ruin on March 17, and we’re thrilled to unveil “Grind Down” – the lead single from the act’s sophomore LP – to you today.
I’ve covered plenty of Sentient Ruin acts in the last year by means of features, premieres, and reviews, with my in-depth scribe about 8 Hour Animal‘s career last June being probably my favourite article stemmed from these rigid hands so far. There’s just something indescribably perverse and enjoyable in the artist’s ravishing output, and once I learnt there’s a new full-length endeavour set to be released and we got offered the chance to handle the premiere for this song, I jumped on it faster than you can say ‘fuck me‘ sideways. Without further ado, and with more to follow, hit play on “Grind Down” from below and meet me on the other side.
Still unbelievably pummelling and as abstract as ever, 8 Hour Animal has seemingly taken a step towards slightly more comprehensible compositions. The near unbearable harsh electronics and programmed drums gather flesh around their bones from buzzing guitars and somewhat hardcore-esque vocals that bring a distinct flavour and emphasis to the otherwise lewd structure. Experimentation has always been a guiding motif in 8 Hour Animal‘s being, and based on this new song alone, Kill Your Boss won’t be an exception to that rule – and why should it be?
“Grind Down” flourishes through destructive leanings, living up to its name fully by being a colossal wheel of noise grinding down everything on its path and pissing on the remaining fine powder, only to sculpt it into a dismal statue with serpentinous mile-long tentacles sprawling forth from where its head should be. Each and every second found throughout the song’s seven-minute runtime is as unforgiving and abrupt as the other, and there’s no relief to be found from its confines. What’s for sure is that once you accept the unfathomable dread into your heart, you’ll find a plethora of new nuances and angles from it on each listen. Granted that the main movements lie firmly somewhere on the scope of noise, industrial, (black-ish) metal, and such, the devil is in the details, as they say. In 8 Hour Animal‘s case, subtlety has as much significance as vacuuming sand on a desert does; it’s just that there are simply so many things occurring at all times that deciphering all the layers take a long while.
