Criminal Element - Criminal Crime Time

This is a US death/grind band featuring ex-members of Suffocation with a more hardcore approach to the vocals. Sonically, I find this more like Napalm Death’s step sideways of the late 90’s, a groove orientated death approach with some grind assaults and blast beats added to pepper the mixture and sort out the true leaders of the resulting pit should this be at a live show.

‘Dissociative’ has a sound bite of Joe Pesci who’s going to fuck you up, ha and then the music starts. The sound on rubbish speakers is overridden by the vocals and drums, the style is an upbeat level of death/grind although it doesn’t really do anything else other than angry up the blood until the really cool guitar riff after about two and a half minutes that continues for the remainder of the track, completely changing the character and may well lead to purist confusion. ‘Falling Down’ is a throw away track, almost like whale song, but more so emulating the deranged minds of its creators, not personally, but musically, it is attempting to be clever, but Pantera already did all of this on ‘Reinventing…and ‘The Great Southern Trendkill’ so it doesn’t sound that remarkable the added bonus if the fast death metal blitzkrieg that the latter part of the track features after about three minutes.

However, looking at different reference sources, I believe this band has now dissolved, although I would check that out for yourself first before I pass judgement. Having said that, it’s a release that you would listen to in relative comfort, but it is nothing that outrageous to drop everything and listen to intently, and it hasn’t moved out of the 90’s.