- Review by Faye Coulman
East Anglian aggressors The King Is Blind drop blistering new demo
Having crammed every conceivable inch of its modest, nine-minute runtime with a deathly wealth of ceaselessly churning grooves, battering hyperblasts and tautly agile, bone-scraping textures, ‘The Ides of March’ makes a massively compelling case for the immeasurable value of quality over quantity.
With its prominently displayed strains of madly accelerating grindcore audibly surging and crackling with adrenaline, this explosive five-tracker instantly ensnares the senses before dragging the unsuspecting listener headlong into a turbulent undertow of smouldering, densely muscular groove. Displaying scalding precision above these raging, ink-black contortions, the wondrously crushing ‘Plague Pit’ sees a flurry of lacerating guitars seethe and entwine like a nest of agitated vipers while acerbic-tongued frontman Steve Tovey belches forth a gargling hail of dry-lung curses. From bone-splintering blasts that ricochet like a lethal string of hammer blows and frenetic clusters of knife-edged fretwork to hauntingly majestic trappings, it comes as no surprise that epic lyrical yarns of murder and cursed misfortune run rife throughout this deliciously dark outing. And with ‘The Ides…’ forming the latest in a string of relentlessly blistering releases and stellar live sets at the prestigious likes of Bloodstock Open Air, there’s no doubt that TKIB numbers one of the UK’s most exciting new extreme exports yet.
Listen to 'The Ides of March' in full over at