I have mentioned this before in some previous reviews, but ever since I left the Netherlands in 2005 it seems that the heavy music scene has exploded over there, with loads of great bands erupting from the musical underground. Examples include Ortega, IZAH, Fire Walk With Us, SiMÓN, BITCHO, This Routine Is Hell and many more. To this list we can also add Starve, a sludge metal band adding influences from the dirtiest corners of heavy music to their repertoire. One of their recent releases is a split 7” with Belgium political grindcore band Agathocles who has been around since 1985 and has released a huge amount of underground split releases, full lengths and EPs.
On Hedwige we are treated to 1 track by Agathocles and 2 tracks by Starve. So it is a very short and straight to the point split release. Agathocles' track ‘In Nomine Dei Nostri (Fuck You)’ is a 7 minutes long and quite interesting track. It is not at all what I expected from a grindcore outfit. For a start, it is a long track with a lot of repetition in the bass lines and lyrics. On top of this the band adds some very noisy sounding guitar feedback and almost 70s psychedelic synthesisers. The production of this track is almost demo-like and sounds very rough, but it gives the track a lot of character. It’s not my most favourite piece of music, but I did enjoy it nonetheless.
Then the 2 tracks Starve added to Hedwige, which are a different piece of cake altogether. First of the 2 tracks is ‘Untitled’ and this track is dirty, filthy, heavy as fuck and very good indeed. ‘Untitled’ starts very slow, sounding very heavy doom, and slowly speeds up from midway through towards the end. Vocalist JJ has an interesting voice, sounding very gnarly and rough and he almost appears to have come out of some Scandinavian black metal band. Basically ‘Untitled’ is 6 minutes of filth, fuzz and crust inspired doom/sludge metal and it’s a pleasure for my ears. The second track ‘Starvation’ is a 41 seconds short cover of the song originally recorded by the American hardcore punk band Siege back in 1984 on the Drop Dead album/demo. And Starve kept true to the original track, blasting 41 seconds of fast tempo hardcore punk sludge filth through my speakers.
Hedwige is a great little 7” split release advertising some excellent underground metal from the Netherlands and Belgium. You can download Starve’s tracks for the ‘name your price’ option here, but if you’re a vinyl junky I’d recommend you to buy the 7” as it would make a great addition to your underground music collection. Also, Agathocles’ track is only available on the vinyl as well.
