San Jose, California. Hey, hey, hey, do you know the way to San Jose? It is the cultural, financial and political capital of Silicon Valley, which means that anytime you log onto Tik Tok or Facebook and think “What the fuck is this shit?” you have San Jose to blame for that. Social media is one of those things where it’s so obviously having a toxic effect on society but it’s also something you very clearly can’t just get rid of. Once we have instagram we can’t NOT have instagram. Like, how else would I share my shirtless selfies? Would I just mail them to random people on the Pony Express and hope some of them slide into my DMs, aka come to my house in the middle of the night? NOT ON MY WATCH, BRO. Also, the San Jose Sharks were one of seven NHL teams to NOT make the playoffs this year. 24 out of 31 teams made the postseason and the fish were not one of them. Wow.
Why the hype?
So, if you couldn’t tell by the last paragraph, I have a lot of facebook Friends and when the quarantine started I noticed there was this one dude who kept posting videos on live of him absolutely shredding on guitar with such a nonchalant expression on his face. Lo and behold after a few weeks I learned this individual was none other than Andrew Lee of Ripped to Shreds. I guess he had added me at some point over the years, idk Im a very busy important person. Anywho, Andrew is one of those grindcore guys who is pretty prolific, has his fingers in a lot of projects and plays a variety of instruments. Ripped to Shreds would probably be considered his ‘main band’ but independently of our facebook friendship, I came across this anime inspired side project of his and instantly knew it had “Blast Worship” written all over it.
Latest Release
All Waifus Fall Before the Trashcan split with Landfill. I learned a lot of things listening to this album this past week. I learned what a “weeb” is, as well as the fact that sometimes sloppy drumming can be just as if not more brutal than super tight drumming and that Andrew is capable of some seriously monstrous vocals. All of this is done with a clear sense of irony and awareness of the ridiculousness of not only grindcore, but anime in general. But despite all the window dressing, there are plenty of riffs here too, from the epic Power Rangers intro of opener “3, 2, 1 Let’s Jam” to the open salvos of “Power of Anime”, this record contains just too much kick-assery to be chalked off as just another meme band. I have the power of god and anime on my side.
