Review by Saxy S for Gaza - I Don't Care Where I Go When I Die (2006)

I have made pretty clear in the past that I don't "get" math/grindcore. Coming from a background in which melodic development is essential, it really bothers me that this entire genre is devoted to play these crazy ass rhythms that are relentless as fuck, but have zero melody or compositional growth. 

Now I know that some of you might hear this and say: "you're just mad because of all of the eclectic guitar tones and gross vocals". Well, not really; I've listened to enough Dillinger Escape Plan, Converge, Every Time I Die, and Daughters albums to know that you can have melodic songwriting that is musically dissonant and alienating. So with Gaza, I have to admit that I didn't want to review this album, because all of my requirements are missing and leave me at a huge disadvantage. 

With I Don't Care Where I Go When I Die, the frameworks that we do get are incredibly simplistic. The first two tracks on the album are the closest to representing mathcore with their short song structures. But on "Hospital Fat Bags" and beyond, each song starts like a mathcore song, which goes on way too long, and transforms into a slow, brooding sludge/doom/slowcore groove that is not given enough time to develop into something truly remarkable.

It also gets incredibly tiring when the tracks on this record are painstakingly long! These mathcore passages go on for far too long, so nothing is ever given enough time to simmer and grow on me. The grooves are so frantic in changing pace and tempos, it is easy to forget everything you just listened to, especially after the extended sludge metal outros. Now part of this may be part of the process, as this album is nihilistic as all hell. And it can work; as I already mentioned, Daughters' album You Won't Get What You Want from 2018 was nihilistic, uncomfortable, and consistent. The instrumentation of this album may imply chaos, but the rapid changing of styles are more scatterbrained than anything else.

Let this review be the framework for all math/grindcore albums that I review from here on out. If a mathcore band wants to break this trend and create more melodic sounding, nihilistic shit like this like Daughters, I would be down to listen to more of that. But it seems like more and more mathcore bands are taking more influence from the stylings of early Converge and Gaza. For a certain individual, this will be your cup of tea. But it isn't for me.