“Ecocide, the debut from Slugcrust, was a difficult album to write about. The brevity, genre and unrelenting frenzy made for a somewhat complicated but altogether illuminating reviewing effort. Not only was I called to deliver a verdict on the quality of the album, but I found myself asking some very basic questions about the nature of reviewing itself: should I base my conclusions on my personal views without taking into account the context of the style of metal in question? Or should I instead grade on a curve, remembering that one of the album’s shortcomings is perhaps also one of the genre’s founding principles? All these questions and more went through my head as I spun Slugcrust’s Ecocide,” Surviving the critical grind.
