Continuing their full pedal thrust from last year's Leeches, Canada's Wake stick to their style of hardcore gone grind that still wants to slam your teeth into your skull. Throaty buried vocals bark and the band goes from thudding walls of speed to drawn out downtempo breaks. The relatively "safety" of the band doesn't appeal to me as it lacks punch much like Misery Index in their modern incarnation. It's no surprise that Colin Marston of Krallice fame had his hand in mastering their side into a digified slop of heavy grindcore.
Greece's Dephosphorus on the other hand grabbed me immediately. A welcomed change in production affixed with strained, viral like vocals, textured drums and guitars that jumped from grinding lines to His Hero is Gone style riffs makes Dephosphorus's side far superior. For those of you that heard their previous effort Axiom, be thankful that Dephosphorus has done a better job in producing this split material (that snare drum that stuck out on Axiom is long gone). The only downside of their effort is the lack of time to venture into the spacey cosmo stuff that made Axiom such a gem.
In the end the split works. Wake's style owes more to the metal heritage of grindcore whereas Dephosphorus owes more to the stripped down aggressive roots of punk.
7 Degrees Records
Dephosphorus
Wake
