medium ep

"Medium" to the Maximum: Crusty Grind for Your Aching Mind

medium ep

The second track on Medium’s self-titled debut is called “Maximum Rampage” — had the band not chosen to name the record after themselves, it’d have been a perfect title. Those two words are all that’s needed in order to portray what the Argentine grind/crust quartet have accomplished in just 19 minutes. Pop in your earbuds and sprint full-tilt into the nearest brick wall, because that’s what this feels like — check out an exclusive full-album premiere below.

From the first track to the last, Medium maintains a punishing and relentless pace. “Black Future Patrol,” the album’s midpoint, briefly slows in tempo before the band ramps them up again in the second half of the record; even here, downbeat-driven passages provide no respite. Where other bands might have tacked on a fistful or two of extra songs to pad things out, Medium keeps their debut lean, and as a result, each song thrives.

There’s a dour undercurrent that pervades throughout Medium, with blackened leads even popping in from time to time, and Medium aren’t shy about looking beyond the confines of their grind/crust hybrid for additional ingredients. At the forefront, vocalist and bassist Lucien projectile vomits growls that are less reminiscent of any human-issued sounds as they are those of a supernaturally raging were-creature. His vocal abrasiveness is an appropriate counterweight to the melodic guitars that dance atop bandmate Rama’s pummeling drums.

“Efficient” is almost too soft a description for Medium’s first outing, so driven and purposeful is this record — but contained within its seven songs are all the elements required to understand exactly what the band are here to accomplish. Though sparing in its duration, Medium brings the brutality in plenty of excess.

Medium releases on CD, including a limited autographed box set, and digital on February 28th via Transcending Obscurity.

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