BRING THE WAR! Hell yeah! – That’s the way to kick off an album. Your speakers vibrate under the strain of Phobia, as you are beaten so severely and brutally, that Columbian death squads will think it’s a bit too much. This merciless thrashing continues for five or six songs – utilizing the full grindcore arsenal of hellishly low-tuned bass-riffs, nerve-wracking guitar wails, vocal dualism (high-pitched screaming vs. deep drunken shout-growling), the works… Then slowly and gradually, as you get into the center of these 22 acts of violence, the brutality ceases a bit, the mayhem turns to background noise. Your attention fades or redirects. Until song number thirteen (Instruments of Deception), which leaves you battered and delightedly confused. This carries over in the next few songs, and then you loose focus again. One song evolves out of the past one, and on it goes, with little variation – even for grindcore. Until the very end, when Phobia gets in a few punches, when you least expect it.

Phobia apparently likes sampling all sorts of movie quotes and such into the music, exclusively used as short intros – with the single exception of the last track (Blackened Day – the last few punches). Sometimes this approach goes awry, as some bands are prone to overuse it, or use it in an accidentally funny way (and some bands just use it for fun, which can be great – check out the review of Grindpeace from this month). Phobia operates this weapon with the care of a seasoned soldier, I have to admit. Especially as the outro of 22 Acts of Random Violence. It’s eerie and it kicks ass!

All in all, this is a solid album, but the many up and downs, and the periods of buzzing background muzak makes it far from ideal. As the grindcore bible teaches us to do: Phobia plays 22 songs in just over half an hour. It is an impossibility to make them all good, thus some of them ends on the lower part of the rating scale, for a total result that doesn’t pay the good songs the tribute they deserve.