Graf Orlock End Credits

One of grindcore’s greats are hanging their instruments up, the curtains are falling, and, yes, the end credits are playing. To say that Graf Orlock have won the right to do whatever they want is an understatement. Almost 20 years of hard-and-heavy release after release have ensured there’s plenty to reflect and embark on even as they close up shop with one final project.

Graf Orlock’s gimmick, if you’re unaware, is creating music with violent, dystopian cinema in mind. Most of their songs sample popular movies from Terminator 2 to John Wick, contextualizing them as these little vignettes of riotous, grinding hardcore with a familiar backdrop of sorts, as long as you’re privy to the films they use. Hell, they even did an EP focusing on certified hood classic movies like Menace II Society, Juice, and Boyz N The Hood called Doombox. Crimetraveler though, their 2016 LP, is arguably their best work and just so happens to be a completely original album with no samples, just the raw, urban, occasionally retrofuturist aesthetic their favorite movies use.

End Credits ensures the group goes out as loud and bloody as they came in, focusing on apocalyptic endeavors and creating a neat double entendre with the title. Five tracks, five movies, one final bellow from the Los Angeles quartet. “Mega City Blues” takes on the underrated Dredd movie from 2012, using a sample from the beginning before Judge Dredd and his apprentice Judge Anderson besiege the Peach Trees slum to stop a drug lord. Graf Orlock’s music is about as explosive as the ensuing gun fights in the film - relentless hardcore that veers into thrashy or grindy territory often. The drums are a menace, the guitars garrote with nice tones, and the vocals command your attention with each yell, growl, and scream.

“Dead Out of the Sun” flounders in the flooded world of Waterworld, dredging up some nice melodies to pilot the track along with a slow, groovy section in its center to anchor it down some. “Those Bastards in the Front Sections” tackles Snowpiercer and its ice age apocalypse story of a world-trekking train’s lower class fighting to dethrone a rich, subjugating elite in its front cars. The shortest song, though not by much, it pairs a cheery, somewhat creepy in-film children’s song with another cataclysmic tirade of grindcore. Like the Snowpiercer train, Graf Orlock is practically ceaseless in their execution.

The real pull of the band is their ability to blend heaviness and melody with ease. The weight doesn’t detract from the more catchy and digestible elements of their music, and vice versa. Because of this balance, there’s not a song on this EP that feels weak in either regard, even if it all seems to ride a similar path. To its credit though, it does get better as you go - “Unloading an Unwanted Passenger”, which uses Mad Max 2: The Road Warrior as a framing device, adds some accouterments to the sonic palette that almost imitate the horns or engines of the sort of hulking, barbaric, rusted vehicles you’d find in that movie’s wasteland world. 
 

“In the Court of the Crimson King” rounds the EP out well with one of the band’s longer tracks ever. Not a cover of the King Crimson classic prog rock tune, but it does use Children of Men’s barren, babyless narrative to splash some defiant, anti-fascist paint on End Credits’ final moments. It’s also probably the most raucous song on here, really diving into the punk influences of hardcore with simple, shifting rhythms and another open midpoint with haunting choral vocals to bridge together the meat. It really carries a sense of finality as well, and knowing that this is Graf Orlock’s final project makes it a bit poignant on top of all that.

Talking about every song on a project isn’t something typically done, but when working with a five-song EP it’s hard to keep much a secret on it. This is strong grindcore from dudes who have been at it for a long time, fiercely adept at staying consistent and fun. Whether you look at real life or the silver screen, there’s never been a real shortage of inspiration for their brand of dark, catastrophic music - it’s only really held back by its very nature and grindcore, when played this straight, can be creatively limiting.

Bottom line: End Credits is fun for the whole family; a summer blockbuster that would make Michael Bay blush. Graf Orlock’s farewell is bleak, but played to type very well. There’s no CG bullshit, AI art, or overblown budgets - just raw grindcore for that ass, take it or leave it. Either way, the band go out as they came in: staying true to themselves, writing what they loved, and showing their passion for the crafts they indulged in.