Longhena

Rare to find extremely technical metal that strikes an emotional chord, and rarer still for it to come from grindcore — a subset whose overriding adjectives are “speed” and “rage.” Gridlink brought together shred sovereign Takafumi Matsubara, Discordance Axis’s multi-faceted screamer Jon Chang, Burnt by the Sun bassist Teddy Patterson, and Phobia/Kill the Client blast beater Bryan Fajardo. Despite an album named after a Baroque architect and song titles named after anime shows and bullet hell videogames, Chang’s heartfelt shrieks and Matsubara’s shockingly melodic leads add some new adjectives: “beautiful” and “melancholic.”