Uncle Bob Drives A Combine - Episode III : The Journey Begins
2003 - Self released
By Philip Whitehouse
Contact
Uncle Bob Drives A Combine to order a copy.
If there was any justice in the world, this band would be huge. They're a grindcore trio who have written a concept album about a farmer called Kim who leaves the country to head for a new life in the big city, accompanied by his 'spirit guide', a robot called Pacho. Sound strange? That's nothing compared to the music itself. A delirious mixture of tech-noise terrorism, electronic discord and pure lightspeed grindcore insanity, with occasional doses of country-esque melody (as in the Intro and Outro tracks), weird samples (everything from Doctor Who to South Park is plundered), and myriad other sounds scrambled and twisted to fit into the whole UBDAC ethos.
Each member takes responsibility for the vocals of a certain 'character' in the story - Kim screams his lungs out, Pacho has Dalek-esque electronic vocal effects mangling his voice, and Uncle Bob provides narration. Meanwhile, the drum machine is pushed to the absolute limits of spazz-grind velocity, and the guitarist wrings frenetic, punishing riff after riff from his instrument over the course of the album's 14 tracks. Managing to encompass both the traditional 'wall-of-noise' approach to grind as well as later grind like Nasum's more measured, structured variation, UBDAC in their purely grind moments manage to sound like Agoraphobic Nosebleed, Pig Destroyer and Merzbow caught in a hay baler...
Highlight tracks are hard to pick, as pretty much every song segues into the next, usually with a burst of distorted, manipulated sampling, but 'Scene 6 : The Mugging' stands out with possibly the catchiest grindcore riff ever, and 'Interlude V : Moo!' is perhaps the funniest grindcore track committed to plastic, and has some mean riffs in it to boot.
A work of twisted, irreverant genius, and well worth investigating. Check out the Unsigned Spotlights section too to see how these people's minds work...
10/10
