Barren Path - Grieving (2025)

Barren Path is the new band with Takafumi Matsubara (ex Gridling guitarist), surrounded by a crew of experienced musicians (Bryan Fajardo, Mitchell Luna, Mauro Cordoba and Rory Kobzina), as expected their first album Grieving is full of sharp and tight supersonic grindcore. Too straightforward to compare to Gridlink except for the speed, but I guess there is no ambition of playing forward-thinking music here, just speed for its own sake, for the sheer joy of shredding fast, and I definitely can relate to that. And I think anyone into super fast and modern sounding grind will enjoy the intensity they deliver. Quite basic but excellent nonetheless.

 

The BC page.

 

Takafumi Matsubara - Strange Beautiful And Fast (2019)

Strange Beautiful And Fast is the solo album of Takafumi Matsubara (Gridlink, Mortalized, Retortion Terror). Solo but done with the help of many renowned musicians from the grind/noise scene (too many too list here! Check it on the Bandcamp page, it's impressive). The result is a very enjoyable album, often super fast and technical, but also with some melodic elements and more diversity than is usual in a "normal" grind album and it's working really well here. This one will easily find its place in my soon to come "best grindcore of 2019" list.

The BC page.