This beautiful (at first look) split is very meaningful for both bands. Both bands are celebrating pretty respectful anniversary of 10 years of cooperative work since they have started making their own glory and concerts on stages of different countries. One of the strongest sides for this split it’s a design that has a very high quality and beauty, this vinyl makes a real pleasure to hold it in
hands. Also this release reminds me a coin and as you may know, coin always has 2 sides. The same as this split that has its’ own side of this vinyl, it's a separate branch of grindcore genre. The Foible Instinct (from Kyiv) make more classic genre of grindcore music, however an English band from Krupskaya has more crazy style... those guys play chaotic and insane grindcore with a pretty complex and wild rhythms.
In some measure I hold in my hands a small piece of history; it's the last F.I. record. The last because these guys changed their lineup, were re-named, and now they play a little bit different kind of grindcore. The last five songs were recorded on same small (but nice and lovely) stage of Evergreen studio... I can't say that I heard here something new for myself but from the other side it’s good because guys don't change their old way of making music. As before, these guys were paying a middle tempo harsh grindcore and they do it well until now. Pleasantly, I was pleased with the presence of the second vocal that make also a nice sound. The bad side is that I can distinguish only the guitar sound it’s seemed for me a bit deflating and dry.
Krupskaya is a complete opposite to Ukrainians. Their hellish sound can make your ears bleed, hahah! Such musical perversion is very popular in Albion; this small island contains a solid concentration such as in crazy bands. The broken rhythms, blotches of different genres, chaos in songs and also high scream from Alex – all this will notably spoil your eardrums. But among this cruel violence you can catch (hear) some melodic pieces that makes this record even more insane.
Rating: Foible Instinct - 7.5/10 Krupskaya - 8/10
You can buy this split directly from the bands or from 7DegreesRecords
I love when splits have completely different bands (different in their sound and style) it makes such releases more interesting and varied. Split LP Sandokhan / Krupskaya is a good example. From one side we get german simplicity and perseverance and on the other hand mad english sight on grindcore. In addition to the highlights in the stylistic diversity this split also good with its look. The cover reminds me those test pictures in psychologist office, where they show some blurred image ask thatwhat you see there. Silver painted logos look very neat and nice (I would even say that this is not typical for a grindcore release). I had to ask around a bit about Sandokan, because I haven't found any info about that band in the internet. It seems that someone from Keitzer band is playing there... And this band is a really good example a german metal grindcore. Great speed, nice sound and most importantly simplicity. Sandokhan like the old german tank, they are not ultrafast but that does not prevent them from destroying everything around. And even if there is nothing special for me in this band, I was very pleased to listen to their side of the split.
Well now we turn our plate to B side. Hm... if early Krupskaya`s material and it's certainly does not have such a concentrated musical madness as the latter stuff, but in those songs you can find many interesting things. The most important thing that there is an indispensable feature of those british namely chaotic and broken rhythms. But on this record guys play not only fast material, here you can dig some slow pieces sometimes they resemble bizarre and acid doom. Just listen “Contaminated Dead Atmosphere” and you will understand what I`m talking about.
Rating: Sandokhan - 7,5 Krupskaya - 7/10
You can buy this LP at 7 Degrees rec!
