New Insanity

Bought this bottle of skimmed milk the other day; didn’t like it at all cause it tasted like pure water, and very little else. Tried to find bottles of the normal one, but everywhere I went I was told that the local milk factory only provided the skimmed type this week. Hm, very strange… I decide to go straight to the factory, one of my best friends’ father is a chief over there after all, and to find out what the story is… on the way there I’m dashed by people running in panic, also covering their ears… very shortly after I find out what causes this stampede: violent brutal sounds emitted from two huge loudspeakers perched on top of the main building. Being familiar with this kind of music, once I get closer I detect a chaotic but not exactly amateurish mixture of hardcore, grind, and tunes that closely resemble the spawning death metal movement, think a virulent unapologetic blend of Cryptic Slaughter’s first and early Napalm Death.

As I’m the only man standing at the gate, the management decide to go and check who this valiant chap is. Before long I sit in the office of my friend’s father, and this is where I find out what the whole camaraderie is about: so there’s this lad, a member of a local metal/hardcore act called Insania, who works at the factory. One day, during a night shift, he brings his cassette recorder, to listen to the last demo they’ve stitched. And this is how he finds out that the cows respond very positively to the aggressive sounds of metal, grind and hardcore, by producing much more delicious and higher quality milk. Sure, why not give it a try! The bosses put the speakers up, grab the Insania demos, bring the sound to the max and boom…

however, this past week the situation has worsened… has he bought any milk recently, the man asks me? Yes I have; shitty stuff. Shitty stuff indeed, he readily agrees. Since they couldn’t figure what the hell happened, they brought experts from afar. After several painstaking days or research and scrutiny, the experts have come up with the following verdict: so it turns out that the cows have gotten enough of over-the-top, udder-shrinking, overtly brutal music. Their tastes have shifted; they have become more sophisticated listeners, and they demand now more mind and udder-stimulating tunes. Something more contrived and twisted but equally hyper-active. Hm, I say thoughtful… so how are they going to please the cows now? Well, the man has spoken to the Insania lads the other day, and they’ve promised to change their style. They think they can pull it off in a more technical direction. And they even agreed to change their name to Skimmed, both to better suit the current setting and to avoid frictions with the local police thugs. But, before exposing the already-jaded-enough cows to it, the man’d like someone to audition the band… his son has told him that I’m a metal connoisseur. Would I like to do that? And, there’s a handsome remuneration behind it.

Say no more and here I am, two days later, sitting at home next to the cassette recorder, ready to play the band’s full-length titled “New Insanity”. Title-wise it doesn’t sound very promising, but let’s lend it an ear… wow, the opening cut, titled “Skimmed” by the way, is whole 3.5-min, and it delights herds of both humans and cows with its wild unorthodox conglomerate of crooked not very logical riff-patterns, those constantly overlapping each other in a dizzy-ing bizarre fashion. This is some truly handsome upgrade, I say, and although I don’t come across another such lengthy extrapolation later, I can’t help but marvel at the audacious musicianship exhibited elsewhere, the remaining compositions short super-hectic exercises in technical thrash/crossover/death, a bit of core as well, think Hellwitch meets Cryptic Slaughter again, but the latter’s tucked away, never released more intricate sequel to their mythical debut. Spasms of entangled guitar wizardry (“Post Mortem”, “On the Way Between the Graves”) befall me on regular bases, including several really stylish lead sections, and I struggle to comprehend how it’s possible for just a 2-min tractate like ”Judgment” to make your head spin in circles, stirring deeply psychotic nervy rifforamas by never losing the violent hyper-active base even for a split second… and I don’t feel intimidated by the insane... sorry, intense deathly shouter serving as the singer, from whose spatout ramblings I manage to get not a single word. But it’s alright, I say; the cows couldn’t care less about the lyrics.

Yes, the band have done a really great job, without drastically changing their credo, giving a hefty outlandish boost to their repertoire. This is another wild ride, a twisted eclectic schizorama that time and again sounds like a logical follow-up to the Cryptics’ first instalment, if the US heroes had voted to throw it all on the technical. This is the less schematic, more disheveled but utterly charming side of the retro thrash/death/crossover hybrid, a kind of music that might as well be produced once, as an isolated stint… with a purpose.

And this is when I get torn from my reverie, and remember why I had to listen to this gorgeously crazy slab of music in the first place. A resounding Yes, everyone! This is it! The cows will eat this like hot bread… sorry, grass! Waste no time! Make haste! Pumps in udders! To the max… cause we’re gonna feed the whole world tonight! With pure organic, non-skimmed milk!

25 years later I can still recall this sensational turn of events, when the cows at our local milk factory experienced some sort of enlightenment under these (un)holy sounds, and produced the best milk the world has ever tasted… even a new big road was built leading to the premises… they called it the Milky Highway. The spell lasted for a while, but then the fastidious animals outgrew this album, too… the bastards. The musicians had already reverted back to their old Insania moniker at the time, having switched to some modern light-hearted brand of hardcore; and simply refused to help… I guess they also didn’t have it in them anymore. I mean, you can’t possibly create such an ingeniously schizoid opus twice…

but seriously, what brand of milk were these guys drinking back then?