convinced that the title Please Explode is plainly addressing my eardrums. My sense of sound has developed a love/hate relationship with the new album, and we all know how awkward that grey area can be…

 

Being an established fanboy of both Wretched and Glass Casket, I was personally drawn to Columns seeking some sort parallelism to either one of Cody’s other successful projects. However, this wondrous abhorrence bred in North Carolina has a very different and gruesome sound, very similar to deathgrind giants like Cephalic Carnage and Pig Destroyer (the latter of which is also signed to Relapse). It was in 2004 that Columns first thrust its open hands into the underground hardcore scene, now pulling out bloody fistfuls of a decade’s experience to manifest in the 16 gut-wrenching, bone-grinding, brain-crushing, face-melting, violence-inducing tracks of thrash that comprise this debut LP.

 

First thing to note when it comes to grindcore is how rare it is to find a song over four minutes long, and Please Explode sticks to that niche philosophy of short and sick. The shortest track here, “Rattlesnake Steps,” is 53 seconds of intensity that literally made me feel like I was naked in a wind tunnel, although not one of my overall favorites on the album.

 

The warp-speed blast beat drumming technique is used on every track and gives off a very aggressive vibe with super energetic thrash potential. Drummer Jason Skipper stands out to me as perhaps the most talented of this four man band, truly flaunting his abilities in “Ungrateful” by masterfully maintaining a blistering blast beat over the entire song duration, an exhausting feat. Like seriously, this guy’s arms and legs have to be fucking huge.

 

I feel compelled to also recognize Columns bassist, Jake Wade, for giving a very dominant bass performance in every track that was impossible for me to ignore. Bass guitar roles are typically outshined and viewed as strictly supportive positions, but Wade’s bass riffs never submit throughout Please Explode, and really stand out the most in the songs “Ungrateful” and “A Guilty Bunch.”

 

It’s truly unfortunate how Adam Cody’s chaotic vocal style (although very fitting for the genre) make it difficult to grasp his lyrical messages, but his wickedly rabid sound certainly portrays his emotional standpoint on the issues attacked on Please Explode. The vehement lyrics for every song are impressive and afflicting, using high-impact metaphors and hysterical vulgarity. For example, in “What You’ve Done Is Gone,” Cody calls out the American dream fallacy with lines like, “Goals as easy as popularity/ Go get what you paid for/ Go fuck your picket fence.” Even when ignoring the significance of the message, just the imagery of someone screwing a picket fence had me rolling on the floor! The lyrics for each track on this album are intense, flagrant, and passionate, adding depth to the product as a whole.

 

Now now, gather ‘round! It proved very difficult to pick a favorite song from Please Explode, but in the end my Most Fuck Yeah Track Award for the album goes to “A Guilty Bunch,” a nefarious and skullfucking monstrosity that exemplifies dynamic death metal elements. I just love the genuinely malevolent vibe and misanthropic lyrics for this song! Calculated tempo changes cohesively string verses together from “I am more than the abomination that is my species,” to “I couldn’t care less what these bastards think of me/ I’m nothing but disease,” and emerge as a huge confrontational middle finger to the hypocritical masses. These twisted fucks get an A+ in my book for this track!

 

In all, I’m actually excited to add Please Explode to my iTunes library. There were a ton of awesome tracks that deserve recognition and respect, especially “Punching Nancy Grace,” “Bottom Feeders,” “Bear Molester,” and “The God Clause,” all of which were eargasmic. This collaboration of Cody’s vocals with the seasoned grindcore vets of bands Hemdale and Vehemence have deemed Columns worthy of being a sort of supergroup, and this debut LP is most definitely irrefutable evidence of their strength. Unless you’re some flower-sniffing pansy, pick up Please Explode when it hits shelves on August 5th or buy it on iTunes, and definitely go see these guys live if you reside near the Charlotte area. Follow Columns on Facebook, tumblr, or Bandcamp, and stay metal!