Sour Spirit – Mince Suite III 

Sour Spirit, a band between frontman Rodnie King and drummer Riot Dent, is the sound of walking into a scream room, preparing to scream and only ever screaming inside their head. It’s a cathartic noise punk project in which the focus is on the hell of black trauma and anger. You can say that the appeal of Sour Spirit is that their brand of noise and experimental isn’t too far from free jazz, where melody, rhythm and all aren’t as important as the emotional catharsis, however explosive it may be. 

You can certainly say that MSIII has cleaner vocals and a lyric sheet this time. Still raucus as ever, “Ground Teeth” showcases structure in the songwriting mirroring a math element to hardcore punk. But don’t let the classiness fool you. Mince Suite III moves towards a sludgy, dirty end of punk. The common theme of the album is suffering, whether it be suffering apathy towards an inevitable death as a black person in America or even praising the “end” of a prejudiced person’s “suffering”. The album even tackles the effort to end suffering of other people and build something beautiful in the wake (the closer “Big House”). 

Their Mince Suite series further prove this with blown out aggressive grindcore that is only ever made to be a blip of aggression. Those keeping up with the series noticed that the music just happens to be longer with every entry. The first Mince Suite entry is a literal minute long with each track hardly crossing over fifteen seconds. Mince Suite II doesn’t let up on the mayhem, but extends it past that miniature 15-second blast sometimes into making sure no song is longer than 32 seconds. Only two songs are that long.) So, after hearing the series, Mince Suite III should follow the pattern of being more “filled out”, right?

Mince Suite III still covers the frustration of living in a dying universe that wants them to die faster but this time makes clear the act of changing course, even if it has to be through aggressive means. There are only so many words to say, and Mince Suite III said only what was necessary.

-mynameisblueskye