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Regression is the debut LP by Seattle death grind outfit Theories, but it doesn’t feel like it. The quartet has been headlining local shows, jaunting on nationwide tours and opening for big touring packages acts for four years (though still somehow don’t have a metalarchives page). I think I heard Regression six or seven times over live before I heard it on record. It was a relief to finally hear what the songs are called. The record is streaming below.

The ethos “more is more” informs Theories’ take on the genre: more guitar solos per song, more disturbing vocal samples, more ignorant breakdowns than the typical-blast-then-pause grind record. Scott Hull of Pig Destroyer and Agoraphobic Nosebleed mixed the album, and punched every instrument into the red. The bass sounds like a guitar and the guitar sounds like the death squeal of some huge cybernetically enhanced boar. Drummer Joe “Grindo” Axler’s snare drum his sound as if they could break coconuts, and his cymbals sound like they’re made of Gillette razorblades. Even by grind standards it’s an intense listening experience.

Regression rewards listeners for gritting their teeth through it’s aural assault with small details, such as the flurry of creative fills that punctuate the last breakdown in standout track “Shame,” or the Gojira-esque bomb-and-chug groove that anchors “Swimming in Mud.”

“In 2015, with a lot of metal being released in genres that we enjoy but don't play, we wanted to make sure to make as pissed of a record as we could,” Axler, also a veteran of Book of Black Earth, Samothrace and Skarp, said. “We all come from punk/grind backgrounds and feel like there’s way less grind and death grind bands around right now, the newer(ish) ones that are alive right now absolutely kill i.e. Transient, ACxDC, The Afternoon Gentleman, Murder Construct, Wilt, Magrudergrind and many more, but it seems like there were so many more active when we were younger in the scene. Time to bring it back.” Theories play grind in the same vein as those other crust-influenced bands Axler mentioned, however their approach is also reminiscent of the maximum overdrive ethos of classic Earache bands who, like Theories, were trying to take a seemingly niche genre to its most extreme and exaggerated form.

— Joseph Schafer

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Regression is available on March 24 on Metal Blade. Follow Theories on Facebook.