AN NCS “PREMIERE”: NOOTHGRUSH — “USELESS”

(written by Islander)

My introduction to Oakland’s Noothgrush came in 2011 via Southern Lord’s The Power of the Riff tour, a limited run of west coast dates that marked the band’s return after splitting up in 2001 (and their first show in Seattle since 1997). What I wrote about that show (here) was my best effort to explain the impact of the music:

Imagine this: You’re chained in an iron receptacle, and through vents in the bottom, hot paving tar slowly flows in. Inexorably, at a glacial pace, it covers your feet, it climbs up your legs, it reaches and passes the part of your body that does all the thinking, it covers your abdomen and your chest, your arms strain at their chains and you scream as the tar boils the flesh away until it reaches the empty cavity on top of your shoulders and pours into your ears, mouth, and nose, suffocating you in a blistering black agony. Your last sensations are the smell of your own incinerating flesh and the shrieking chants of this band’s vocalist…. Sick, sloooooow, sludgy, and ultimately irresistible.

The band Pelican, who performed later the same night, posted this on their Facebook page right about the time Noothgrush finished their set: “Good lord, Noothgrush are heavier than a knapsack full of anvils.”

Hell yes they were.

I covered some of Noothgrush’s subsequent releases at NCS, including their final EP Entropy, which was released before they split up again in 2018. I also spent time digging back into their discography pre-dating their first split-up in 2001. As many of you know, they never released an album, either in that earlier phase of activity or in the later one. Instead, they participoated in a slew of split recordings. But despite the absence of an album, the influence of Noothgrush on the trajectory of heavy music was tremendous.

Noothgrush tortured doom until it became sludge, leaving listeners with “a bleak and nihilistic condemnation of what it means to be human”, to quote NCS writer Todd Manning. In that same article, which focused on 20 Buck Spin’s reissue of the 1997 Noothgrush split with Corrupted, he referred to sludge as “Doom’s younger brother, suffering from all sorts of complexes and probably killed their parents because they wouldn’t give him money for meth”.

No doubt, that split with Corrupted was a landmark release, but it’s fair to say that the sequence of Noothgrush releases in 1996, two years after their formation, were the most pivotal. In the last four months of that year, Noothgrush appeared on four records: the Embraced by the Anti Self 7″ EP; the Cry Now, Cry Later Vol. 4 double-7″ compilation; the Accidental Decapitation Through Masturbation! six-way split 7″; and the Useless split 7″ with Agents of Satan.

The band also recorded a live set earlier that year on the campus radio station at Stanford University, playing songs that wouldn’t otherwise see release until several years later. This live set was dubbed onto old used cassettes which were duplicated and distributed through the global tape-trading network of the ’90s, and titled Live on KZSU May 1, 1996.

What’s all this background leading to? It’s leading to the news that on October 30th Nespithe Records will commemorate the 30th anniversary of that pivotal year by releasing a special compilation CD of all the afore-mentioned 1996 music with an 8-page booklet under the title Man is His Own Tormentor. Per the press materials we’ve received for this release:

While some of these tracks would variously appear on posthumous compilations of NOOTHGRUSH’s scattered work, never before have they been collected together in their entirety. As such, not only is the 73-minute Man is His Own Tormentor vital for archival completism, more so does it serve as the most complete, eternally compelling snapshot of the band at their creative peak. As a bonus, the compilation concludes with a live song (“Friends of Mine”) from a February 9th, 1996 show, for the first time on CD.

What we’re further leading to is our “premiere” of a Noothgrush song from the compilation, the song “Useless” that appeared on the vinyl split with Agents of Satan — “premiere” in quotes because obviously the song isn’t new, though lots of people have probably never heard it before.

To again use possibly the oldest word in metal, “Useless” is a very heavy song, in more ways than one. Not only are the tones staggering in their crushing immensity, the megatonnage of the song’s emotional weight will also bring most people to their knees.

After spoken words that make the song’s target clear, Noothgrush sear the listener with wails of feedback and then proceed to brutally stomp and cause the music to groan like some dying leviathan. Gnashing screams and raging yells vent the words as the music massively heaves and ruthlessly punches. It’s an experience that’s both desolate and dangerous, both cold-hearted and hopeless.

Slowing the pace, the band drag listeners into an even deeper abyss of moaning agony. The low-frequency notes dismally reverberate as if radioactive; the drums thump like ruthless body blows; more spoken words can be heard; and the riffing slowly undulates like some subterranean world serpent while the voices spit their fury and pain.

Thirty years down the road, the music has lost none of its visceral power or bleak intensity.

As of this writing you can also listen to two more songs off the album at the Nespithe Bandcamp (where the album can be pre-ordered) — the opening song “Stasis” and “Dianoga” (from Live on KZSU, May 1, 1996). The full track list is available there as well.

P.S. If you’ve never bothered to search out where Noothgrush got their name, an explanation was provided in an interview that no longer exists online: “A Noothgrush is this little prismatic stoner imp who takes over your toothbrush. That’s according to Dr. Seuss. I’ve never actually seen one, and Seuss is too deceased to elaborate on his encounter.”

PRE-ORDER:
https://nespitherecords.bandcamp.com/album/man-is-his-own-tormentor

NOOTHGRUSH:
https://noothgrush.bandcamp.com
https://www.instagram.com/noothgrush_band/
https://www.facebook.com/noothgrushband/