Miraculous Fatality

I was searching for grindcore bands on this site and stumbled across this band. With a name like “Beard Without a Mustache”, I had to check them out. I was expecting something crappy but needless to say, I was surprised.

Miraculous Fatality ( Mortal Kombat reference, maybe?) is a ten minute EP, which means it comes and goes just like that. Fortunately, it's pleasant all the way. The songs range from about forty seconds to around two minutes so it’s easy to digest in one sitting. Straight up, this isn’t one of those albums where every time you listen, you get something new out of it. The guitars have this crunchy sound to them and never do the same thing for too long, something many grindcore bands can have issues with. The riffs are also pretty memorable, maybe not immediately, but later in the day you might find that they've gotten stuck in your head. The drumming is nice as well and fills in, while never going off beat. The vocals are a little weird though. He does some high pitched screams but never any deep growls like you might expect. Regardless it works alright, and gives it a nice hardcore punk feeling. They try some different things too, “Armageddon” has a nice opening to set the mood, “Avoiding Fate” has random melodic moments and “Collector” has a random acoustic sounding section in the middle.

The production is the only bad part about the album. You can hear everything going on, but what ever they used to record the vocals, they need to throw it in the trash. It seriously sounds like he was singing from a different room. The drums are a little too high in the mix as they over power everything. The guitars are somewhat clear and you can always follow what’s going on, but again they’re slaves to the pounding drums. The sound clips often too, and it’s not related to headphones or audio format. Even with my hundred dollar headphones and 320 Kbp mp3 files, it’s still there meaning that it is indeed a fault with the mixing. It’s not enough to ruin the songs but it’s a mild annoyance if your ears are sensitive like mine or just plain picky when it comes to production.

Overall, Miraculous Fatality doesn't do anything that will just blow you away, but at the same time it wont bore you. There are some mixing issues but as a metal fan you’ll probably be used to that anyway and it doesn't ruin the music. There are no bad songs and it’s heavy and chaotic, just like a proper grindcore album should be and isn't too predicable, even throwing a twist or two at you. Plus, that album art is kind of epic. Anyway, since the band offers it for free (check their Bandcamp), you have no excuse to not check this out if you’re a grindcore fan.