Exclusive Video Premiere: Total Fucking Destruction - "Monsters"

February 4, 2013

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Giant movie monsters, the cheesiest variety, compose a relatively minor part of extreme music culture. Zombies, serial killers and demons are the preferred villains of choice in metal music. But giant monsters—kaiju, in japanese—hold their place in the heavy pantheon. Shane Embury of Napalm Death collects kaiju memorabilia, and of course Gojira is named after Godzilla, the be-all-end-all of kaiju. Maybe that’s why my favorite Philly grind band Total Fucking Destruction made a love letter to Tokyo’s finest out of the music video for “Monsters” the title track off their new EP.

The glory of these films is the same as the glory of Total Fucking Destruction—neither is high quality as art per-se, but the grand and over-the-top spectacle of them reeks of ingenuity, ambition, and a kind of joi de vivre that mainstream cinema and music rarely possesses. You can hear it in Total Fucking Destruction’s music—most of “Monsters” is one long shred section.

Kaiju films often carry a thinly veiled social or ecological message in them, as does Total Fucking Destruction and other grind bands. It’s common knowledge that Godzilla himself was a metaphor for the danger posed by atomic warfare. Total Fucking Destruction’s name alone evokes a similar modern threat. Japan is the only existing post-apocalyptic society on earth, their pop culture meshes well with post-apocalyptic music.

The two-track Monsters EP is out now via Handshake Inc/Grindcore Karaoke. Listen closely for vocals from Dead Milkmen’s Rodney Anonymous in the David Hall directed video below.