Meek Is Murder

No matter how you interpret it, Meek is Murder is a great moniker for this NYC act. The name can be viewed as meaning being meek is murderous to oneself, and you can certainly hear their rejection of docility in the bold music. However, if you take away another connotation — that murder can be a quiet, gentle act —their moniker is almost as saturated in irony as the music in riffs. The group's merciless slaughter of various forms of heavy music is anything but a calm affair. The resultant sound is a grinding romp through late '90s/early '00s metalcore. Mathcore comes to mind, especially given the title of their debut LP, Algorithms. Everything is Awesome Nothing Matters is as equally calculated, even if it its formulas don't always add up. Meek is Murder's romps through Converge and Botch territory are impressive, though nowhere near as ambitious as producer Kurt Ballou's unit. Sometimes these elements lose their focus and chaos ensues, à la Curl Up and Die, but they don't result in the anxiety-ridden breakdowns in the same way. However, as the grindcore elements are ramped up, the songs' virility increases. As well, Meek is Murder are an adequate, if not wholly suitable, substitute for the deceased Gaza. Despite their admission in a recent interview that they've been labelled "whatevercore," Meek is Murder aren't a band to be dismissed with such indifference.