My favorite botanogrinders, Undesiccated from Virginia, unleashed no
less than three essential recordings last year, 2019. And now they are already
back with a new platter, 'Cudzoo', which contains 7 songs that truly crush and
enlighten simultaneously. Apart from their musical prowess which caught my ears
in the first place, Undesiccated aim to educate with the titles of their
releases, nothing has changed with 'Cudzoo'. Kudzu is a climbing, coiling, and
trailing perennial vine which, apart from being grown for fodder and being
edible for humans, is used as erosion control. Unsupervised in naturalized
environments it will grow out of control quickly. Here with the spelling the
band uses, they are doing a wordplay in my opinion. The prefix cud means partly
digested food returned from the first stomach of ruminants to the mouth for
further chewing. And the suffix zoo we all know what that means although the
word is also used as a situation characterized by confusion and disorder. With
all the craziness going on in the world at the time of writing this, as well as
looking back in history, we, humans, are stuck in a loop where we never learn
and keep doing the wrong things our forefathers did to Mother Earth. Hence cud,
meaning we regurgitate or repeat bad things while living in a state of zoo.
As with the previous release, 'Periderm', the musical approach is full-on grind with less influences from other genres. But, like the predecessor, Undesiccated take wide turns and steps out of genre norms. What I mean is, there are 7 songs clocking in at over 14 minutes with the closer, 'The Smear And The Clamor Of Indistinction' being 4:44 minutes! That alone could be the entire length of a grind album. But that's one of the things I love about this band, they do whatever they want to something all bands of any genre should do.
No hold barred 'Timeless Truth; Under The Fig Tree' comes
flying out of the gates only to end in an eerie partial silence with only the
sound of animals and a weird alien electronic sound baying. 'The Filthy Remain
And The Holy Remain' follows and is just as furious in it's approach only to
end with distorted voices speaking. Didn't think the music could get more
intense but 'Apparatus Of Terror Deposed - From Persecutor To Proponent'
annihilates everything in sight in a way that leaves me out of breath. And as
if that wasn't enough, 'Thirst', continues the same leaving no respite
whatsoever.
'When Blood Boils' starts off in almost tribal fashion but that only lasts for a few moments until a spazztic mayhem ensues. After a few seconds with some room to breathe, 'Broken Bread; Indefatigable' levels the playing field indefinitely while leading the way for the already mentioned closer 'The Smear And The Clamor Of Indistinction'. It actually slows down a bit about halfway through only to gradually, very gradually build up until fading out.
Again, this trio of hoodlums has done it again. Apart from pushing the envelope to make a narrow genre wider and keep it interesting, everything they do is with such freedom and enthusiasm. True, the music they play and the topics they bring up: pollution, war, terror and injustice, there's no denying the darkness brought up. But the way Undesiccated presents all this brings light and joy in the way that there is hope, albeit however small it is. And that's what we need these days, in particular. Fantastic stuff, guys!
-Swedebeast
