Review of Doperunner - Doperunner

From the usually more death metal based Blast Head Records comes the debut from Denver’s Doperunner and its blistering mix of punk, grindcore and sleezy, Southern blackened sludge. It’s a volatile, fun release that plays like a mix of Nausea, Soilent Green and Eyehategod or Iron Monkey.

The 14 grindcore length tracks deliver an ample blend of power cord riffs and gruff bellows with sauntering, sludgy grooves and high pitched shrieks. It’s a quick (22 minutes), riotous listen that cover both styles very well and is chock full of vitriol and sludge. From the opener “Dead Alive”, which delivers a murky groove an simply ripping final few seconds to pure, grinding closer “Eat. Work. Sleep. Shit”, the album is a full on assault of riffs, growls, lurches and screams that’s rather short, satisfying and simple in 2014 deluge of tech death or OSDM.

The production is crisp and clean, maybe too clean for some of the dirtier, doomier moments, which could use a little more ick and distortion but it works overall. The balance of furious, punk infused grind (“Business as Usual”, “Mechanical Separation”, “Knuckledragger”, “Vegan For Status”) which would make Mitch Harris proud, collides well with slower, Southern tinged crawls like “Smutpeddler”, “Specific Gravity” and “Relentless”( though I wish there was a few more or a more lengthy dirge),  to create an album that is actually somewhat unique in 2014.