Painkiller's "Guts of a Virgin" is Avant-Garde Metal

First Post April 19, 2024 06:48 PM

The 1991 debut album from unusual New York side project PainKiller is generally tagged as a combination of free jazz & grindcore but I have to question that position. The jazz component is most certainly bizarre enough to warrant an avant-garde jazz association while the grindcore component is actually quite small given just how short those tracks are. The wider contribution would sit much more comfortably under an avant-garde metal tag as there simply isn't anything around that sounds remotely like this artist. For that reason, I'd like to see 'Guts of a Virgin' added to The Infinite under the Avant-Garde Metal genre. If this is successful then I'll be looking to have the album removed from The Horde & the Grindcore genre.

This nomination has been posted in the Hall of Judgement.

https://metal.academy/hall/492

April 30, 2024 09:29 AM

I've given both of the first two Painkiller releases some listening and reviews (with the third album Execution Ground to be done the same soon) as a self-challenge to explore the band's avant-garde weirdness. There is definitely a lot of the bizarre jazzy avant-garde metal going on in both albums. However, I can hear some prominent grindcore in some sections of the mid-length tracks in their debut, enough that I think it should still qualify as grindcore in half of the tracklisting. So I'll vote YES for both Guts of a Virgin and Buried Secrets to be added to The Infinite and avant-garde metal, but for those albums to be removed from The Horde and grindcore, I'll vote NO for the former and YES for the latter.