To Dust – Nightmare Cycles [EP, 2020]

Good god, it seems the USA presidential election really have inspired To Dust to write a one uber angry record. Nightmare Cyles is the latest EP by this American Grindcore unit. It’s now available via Seeing Red Records.

Nightmare Cycles feels like getting stabbed in the face with machete, then run over by a school bus and somehow ended getting minced in a giant blender. It is violent, fast, nonsensical and angry. I might be going overboard here, but it is what it is. With fusion of Death Metal, Grindcore with Hardcore Punk thrown in, I could simply describe To Dust is somewhere between Napalm Death, Nails and Nasum. 

Instead of taking the usual Grindcore route aka destroy everything in a form of wall of sound, To Dust takes a better approach with better structure by including slow and fast part together, creating a great dynamic. Also, I like the fact that the vocals are pretty much like Mike DiSalvo (ex-Cryptopsy) and Todd Jones (Nails, Terror); massive and explosive. While the guitar works are crushing and slaps you across the face, the drums (not sure if it’s real or programmed) drives the whole EP with such fury form one end to another. It’s not super technical, but it gets the job done. 

Nightmare Cycles offers only 4 tracks which I feel quite bizarre. With this kind of decent songwriting and dynamics, they should have at least 6 tracks. It’s angry, furious and does not want to stop. To Dust just wants you to get destroyed!

Nightmare Cyles is now available in cassette and digital download format.

FFO: Napalm Death, Nasum, Nails, Rotten Sound