Review by Greg on December 19, 2025.

Just two months after the enjoyable Waltz In A Meat Grinder, the imponderable happened – Kebabblast find a vocalist. Just as a quick recap, the band's first instalment was the total opposite of an inept release, blending underground death metal with an uncanny penchant for lead melodies, which carried the music filling the void left by the vocals. Grindfather, Pt. II is the result of some further rehearsals with this third absolute madman, and I was curious to find out how the band intended to make space for him. Maybe a bit worried, actually. What are these, lyrics in English? Boo, sellouts!

Now, seriously, whatever kind of mysterious aura Kebabblast had has been inevitably altered. The new guy employs an array of voices so wide that it's hard to believe it's a single person doing all the work – mainly a dual vocal style of both growls and screams, in true modern death fare, but also spicing things up with several other techniques, including pig squeals that, in light of the artwork, seem quite appropriate after all. He's certainly competent at what he does – I'd say he was chosen for this reason, after all – but it's also hard to call it a unique feature.

The real issue I have with Grindfather, Pt. II is somewhat obvious, though: the song lengths were left more or less unchanged, meaning that something needed to be axed – and, much to my disappointment, it was the guitars that were toned down. That is, the best part back then (okay, the best out of two instruments but anyway...). It's not like they disavowed everything, as 'Anatolic Steroid' or 'Faster Than Your Mama's Lahmacun' see the vocalist growling above one of those melodies, and it works a lot, but they're pretty much exceptions to the rule. Even the riffs, which were sometimes pretty good, mostly blend into the background, suffocated by the incessant vocals. Take 'Grindfather xxx Groundmother' or 'Ballet Of Ballots' as clear examples of this oversimplification – once you remove the growls and screams, you're left with little more than cavernous, brutal chugging which couldn't have managed to snatch a place in Waltz In A Meat Grinder's tracklist. The former is also notable for its final sample lasting for one full minute, which mostly frustrates me since I'm eager to understand what the character is laughing about with this much pleasure. The chunky riff set of 'Mundane Dürdane' and the two blasting loose cannons in the middle are some other modest points of interest.

Luckily, Grindfather, Pt. II is somewhat boosted by its finale, especially the pulverizing deathgrind number 'Meek Meat', with all its (numerous) tempo changes in their right place, and the slightly less ambitious 'Grindfather Part-Ition', ending on one of the band's, um, trademark melodic solos. That makes me build more anticipation for a future third Kebabblast album, which, on the upside, won't make me wait for much time, I guess. In the meantime, I'm getting hungry and who knows why I can only think of kebabs right now...

Rating: 6.5 out of 10

Review by Carl on January 6, 2022.

Butcher ABC is one of those names that seem to have been around for ages, and still it took me until recently to check them out. Wanna know why? Because I found their moniker sound ridiculous, that's why! After checking out this particular album on YouTube, I had to conclude that I was a dumbass for that.

Because this stuff kicks ass, dammit! Their style is a tribute to old school death metal and grindcore, sometimes to the point of plagiarism. As a whole their style had me thinking of a cross between "Realm Of Chaos" era Bolt Thrower, Coffins, Exhumed, Terrorizer, Divine Eve and even the old Swedish crusty death metal act Comecon's first album. Down tuned chugging alternates with pounding d-beat hammering and furious blasting, with mid tempo parts and some touches of groove added to give it all some variation, to great effect. During their crustier moments they even had me thinking of death/crust bands like Sanctum or Stormcrow, with the vocals reminding me of Death Strike/Master's Paul Speckmann's delivery throughout. The use of a second, down pitched, voice adds to the suspense, with the band being smart enough to not overdo it with this. The songs all have a lot of drive behind them and matters proceed like crazy, leaving the listener not a lot of time to gasp for air between them, until the final track that is. Album closer 'North Of Hell' is a slower, groovier composition that had me thinking of Cathedral's later work, but on steroids. The production on here is awesome: heavy like a concrete elephant, with all instrumentation clearly audible, even the bass guitar. This production provides the perfect platform to allow the music to hammer the listener into submission. This quite simply is a death/grind maniac's wet dream!

As mentioned before, the band borders on plagiarism at times, and even crosses that border at times. Take 'Death In Hell', where they borrow the main riff from Celtic Frost's "Morbid Tales". The same happens at the start of 'House Of Meats', where they recycle Bolt Thrower's legendary "World Eater" opening riff, 'Death By Napalm' has a riff from (of course) Napalm Death's "Suffer The Children" and there's a part in 'Maximum Rotting Corpse' that I know is by another band, it just doesn't come to mind who right now, and there's even more. The thing is, though, this doesn't feel like plagiarism, it's in tribute of, and this concept has been extended to the artwork (on the European version at least) and song titles. Both album title and cover are (not very subtle) nods to Slayer and their "South Of Heaven" album, and in the booklet I find winks and nods all over. There's the Nuclear Death "Bride Of Insect" spider, the guy with the voodoo doll from Napalm Death's "Utopia Banished" and the crucified man from Morbid Angel's "Thy Kingdom Come", with each of these acts being name checked in the song titles. Me, being the nerd that I am, I just love this concept and their message is clear: Butcher ABC is a band that consists of fans in the first place, with musicians as second.

This is a great release if you're into stuff like Frightmare, General Surgery, Cretin and other bands like that. It contains massive sounding death/grind that is well executed and should be able to satisfy all fans of the style, and for the nerdier types, like me, there's lots of fun to be had with the game of "guess the reference" in the artwork, music and song titles. Recommended!

Rating 8.5 out of 10