Let it never be said that Graf Orlock cares not for your entertainment. The fun begins with the packaging: If you want to listen to the film-obsessed band's Destination Time Tomorrow EP, you first have to rescue the CD from the grasp of a face-hugger alien that wraps its die-cut cardboard tentacles around a head, printed on the back of the CD. The fun continues with eight tracks of blasting, Pig Destroyer-style grindcore riffs and screams, interspersed with sound clips from classic dude flicks (among them Lethal Weapon, True Lies, and two installments of the Alien franchise). Make it to the end, sixteen minutes later, and you're treated to a heavy-metal-karaoke version of the Jurassic Park theme.
Mortician may have invented "cinema-grind" a decade before Graf Orlock cleared its first movie sample, but Destination Time Tomorrow gets a hall pass because of its conceptual integrity. The band's movie-dialogue-based lyrics work as a silly entry point and as a clever post-modern social commentary. Graf Orlock blurs the line between authentic emotion and dorky media fixation -- we're never sure if the band's two wounded phlegm-scrapers are being sincere or paying tongue-in-cheek tribute to their favorite scene in Demolition Man. Probably both.
In the grand grind tradition, Graf Orlock's riffs are simple and chunky and change up as soon as you've gotten used to 'em. It's the only way this sort of music works. Yes, it follows the exact same formula as its predecessor (last year's Destination Time Yesterday), but what movie sequel doesn't?
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Band: http://www.graforlock.com/
Label: http://www.level-plane.com/
