It’s Monday and Mondays suck, so let’s grind it out with Weak Flesh A Bird in Hand.
Or more to the point, let’s grind it out with a band that once was. Turns out, Weak Flesh broke up before this album was even released according to their Facebook. And upon hearing this, album, that’s a shame because these guys had a great angle on grind and powerviolence.
A Bird in Hand is the Austin, TX four-piece’s second album. And this thing is a neck bender. Next to Tannhäuser Gate, this is one of the genre’s best, most well composed modern albums. Spanning fourteen tracks and no mercy, A Bird in Hand plummets through fits of grind, powerviolence and mathcore in some deliciously twisted ways.
The album begins unassumingly enough. Feedback, you know. Nothing that you haven’t heard already. Throw in some snare and keep the noise rolling. Add vocals and begin beating until violence erupts. “Homesteader” becomes a seriously vicious skin-peeling track by the time it really gets going. Letting those blasts sink in and then breaking down as the guitar hums in the background.
What A Bird in Hand is so good at is constantly building momentum. Riffs are never around long, and the band is happy to play to math-ier tendencies and shatter expectations of what might come next. Much like Sex Prisoner, they’d rather just play something different than repeat too often. And with this attitude, the album has its share of heavier downtime. And the thing is, it never feels like too much or too little of the good things.
What makes this album a tragedy listening to it is simply that the band is over. This was a group that had a handle on their sound, and it felt like the door was only just opening. Like we only got a glimpse of the real violence and mind snapping that could have been. Then again, maybe they would have never topped this. Regardless, Weak Flesh molded some insane grinding, mathematical powerviolence. Get grinding on this one!
Weak Flesh was here.
