Another limited-edition Indonesian import from GrindToday - this small tape label has been reissuing and releasing some really top-notch and sought-after scumblasts, including a swath of the Sore Throat discography. One of the more interesting pieces of history that came out as part of this series is this classic blast of late 80s what-the-fuckery, one of Sore Throat's more obscure releases being issued for the first time ever.

Here's where we get even earlier into Sore Throat's history, the band's first ever recording session, which ttook place in early 1987 in the bedroom of vocalist/bassist Rich Militia. Although you can really hear the hardcore/crossover element that these guys were diggin' in the riffs on these twenty-one songs, Who Killed Gumby is actually one of he most deranged and rabid and iconic "noisecore" recordings of its time. From the opener "Unrelenting Terror" through the doom-dirge crunch of "Satan's Radish" and closer "The End"'s bizarro hypno-thrash groove and riotous tin-can percussion while some toddler is hollering in the background as it all turns into an almost Hanatarashi-level earfuck, the session nukes your face with incredibly blown-the-fuck-out shit-fi thrashcore , the metallic guitar sound so trebly and buzzsaw-sharp that you feel like it could cut right through you, tetanus-threat , but from there Gumby takes the idea behind Napalm Death's "You Suffer" and extrapolates it into a berserk spew of mach-10 hardcore riffs and shapeless distorted guitar /drum splat, the drumming sounding like someone is banging on a cookie tin in the background, filthy septic distortion and demented guitar solos and puke-ready guttural grunts and almost unidentifiable bass-muck all splattered in every direction. This is some of the most primitive noisecore ever, improvised and out of its mind, total blurr insanity, with quick yelps and jokey jibes scattered through it all; And then you get something like "N-OI-Se", which starts off with a killer catchy hardcore riff, teasing you with a semblance of a hook, but then goes ultra-haywire with everybody going in different directions before finally coming back to that hook, while "I.C.I. Fuck Off And Die" bangs out a wicked thrashcore riff and disgusting vocal vomit; at two and a half minutes, it's a veritable epic compared to the rest of the tracks, but halfway through it, like its companions, collapses for a mid-section of total clunking noise amd random instrumental abuse. That "drumming" I mentioned? It’s absurd - it's metallic clatter, not sounding like a drum kit at all.

This is where so many noisecore bands would develop their energy from, but at the time this was absolutely avant-garde nonsense. The chaos is mixed up with assaults of bone-crunching mid-tempo riffing that, for a moment, could be mistaken for early Celtic Frost collaborating with the aforementioned Hanatarashi. It comes across as almost Dadaistic hardcore / metal / noise pushed to the absolute limit of comprehension, and beyond. Indeed, you get stuff like "Holocaust" that honestly sounds closer to the extreme chaos of the contemporaneous Japanese noise underground. In its totality, it's all hilariously funny to me, and the idea that this led to a record deal with a label like Earache bends my mind. Especially hearing this, which has to be the most raw recording I've ever heard from Sore Throat, which really says something.

The B-side has a 1998 performance from Cardiff, UK, soundboard recording, big mix of songs from throughout their existence as well as loads of their typical joking around, over-the-top apelike vocalizations, bumbling crusty heaviosity. It's raw and awesomely burly, running about half an hour, the audience is clearly having a blast, is clearly sauced up quite nicely, and sounds like they are already in the midst of damaging some things, at the very least each other.. and the energy of a moshpit virtually wafts off od this side of the tape. A killer, blow-out and appropriately low-fidelity recording captures this stream-of-stench, banging their way from barbaric Frostian crustmetal to insane hypersonic grindcore to brief fuckaround reggae jamming to maelstroms of total improvised blurr destruction and straight-up mockeries of Napalm Death. Even though I can't understand one goddamn word they are saying, this is one of the best live documents of Sore Throat I've heard.