Description
Axegrinder – “Rise of the Serpent Men” LP
Part of the second generation of crusty punk-metallers that followed in the wake of Amebix and Antisect (and to some extent Anti-System, too). London’s Axegrinder evolved from their anarcho punk roots (Stone The Crowz, if I remember right), embraced Celtic Frost and Venom, and then let the layers of filth and grime embed within their black threadbare clothes. Never were worse crimes committed in the name of textile abuse. Eyeing-up this Peaceville release in the local Our Price, you kind of thought, naah, the artwork’s too naff, just a second rate Amebix… but I guess, alongside Hellbastard and Deviated Instinct, reputations and cult followings have since mushroomed and spread around the globe. And so here were are, still in press over thirty years later, shows what little I knew (and, if I had bought a copy back in the day, I could have ebayed it ten years ago for twenty bob. Just like I did with Deviated Instinct and Hellbastard).