Delusion Envelope
I think it's great what Willowtip Records are doing for grind fans
(such as
myself). While remaining an extremely well-rounded metal label,
they've been
putting out more grindcore lately. This is great, because their
albums are
becoming increasingly easier to attain,and as I've stated many
times before,
Willowtip rarely put out an album that isn't top notch.
Needless to say, I...Read More
Fishcom Collective
Phobia's crusty grind assault will instantly gratify
extreme metalheads and scare the bloody shit out of
everyone else. Lurching, surging and shifting about at
alarming speeds. Percussion hammers relentlessly,
guitars crank out sickness and untenable levels for
human existence and vocals bellow out the poetry of
your destruction. Violent and constantly changing,
Phobia is massive, nastygood...Read More
Stereo Killer
Listening to pretty much any Willowtip records release is like
getting hit in the face with a baseball bat, in a good way. And
this is no exception. This crust-grind band tears their way through
their songs with such a veangance that it might make your ears
bleed. Their skill and orchestration is obvious, they never miss a
beat, and their songs while all pretty fast have a different feel....Read More
Aversionline
Another recent addition to the ever-expanding Willowtip roster are the grindcore stalwarts of
Orange County's own Phobia. These cats have been at it for more
than 15 years and have a slew of releases out on a slew of
different labels, and they're still going strong. I'm not gonna
lie, though, for whatever reason I sort of lost interest in
Phobia after "Serenity Through Pain"...Read More
Deadtide
Phobia are finally back, and better than ever!
After spending the last several years wallowing in obscurity,
Phobia has teamed up with Willowtip to release one
of the best grind albums of the year. It's about freaking time
Phobia gets a worthy label to back their
old-school grinding fury.
Upon popping Cruel into your CD player, the advantages
of having a solid label backing are...Read More
Decibel
How long can these guys really keep this grind thing up? Judging
from this album's longest cut, the answer is just shy of three
minutes. With Nasum gone and Pig Destroyer (whose guitarist, Scott
Hull, produced this album) exploring "Revolution No. Grind"-like
DVD-audio soundscapes, blaster-casters Phobia might very well be
the remains of a dying species. After 16 years of gnarled...Read More
The Music Edge
Isn't this the band that once appeared on Real TV because during
their Japanese tour one of the axe-wielding members justifiably
smashed the brains out of one of their fans? At it for well over a
decade, California's Phobia plays the brand of melodic grindcore
that is catchy enough to have you inadvertently growling under your
breath for the rest of the day. Mostly comprised of...Read More
Ultimate Metal
Digging their feet deeper into the footholds of grindcore,
Willowtip's latest acquisition sure has impressive credentials.
Phobia have been around since 1990, and they've
released four full-lengths with Cruel being their fifth.
Surprisingly, Relapse Records didn't keep these Californians in
their fold even after '94's Return to Desolation, which
saw Raymond Herrera (Fear Factory) helm...Read More
Metal Review
Phobia are an old-school grindcore band. All those
who have no interest in this style are advised to hit the "back"
button on their web browsers now.
Everyone out? Good. Those still reading are probably fairly excited
to check out Cruel;
Phobia have been a grind mainstay for sixteen
years and with good reason. From their punked-out beginning to
this, their Willowtip debut, this Orange...Read More
Unbound
Phobia return with a full-length slab of blistering grindcore
madness. Like a kamikaze hell-bent on destruction the band rips and
tears annihilating all in their path with blast after blast. Don't
expect jazz interludes or any experimentation here. The guitars
churn while the drummer beats his snare into submission, creating a
wall of noise that rests somewhere in between metal and punk....Read More
Sod
Death to false prophets! Death to posers!! Death to all
governments!!! FUCK IT!!!! DEATH TO EVERYONE!!!!! With a history
dating al the way back to 1990's What went Wrong demo, the
legendary Phobia are grizzled veterens of the
Hardcore/Hate/Crust/Grindcore Metal scene and the raging fury of
their latest ode to hatred and despair, Cruel is a death blow to
all of humanity. Molten tracks like...Read More
Stylus Magazine
Joint review w/ Watchmaker's Erased From The Memory Of
Man
What we have here is certainly not a failure to communicate.
Watchmaker inscribes an epigram to Erased from the Memory of
Man: "The common denominator of the universe is not
harmony-It's chaos, hostility, and murder." (quoted from Werner
Herzog's Grizzly Man-a good choice, given that you can't
really quote the final scene of...Read More
Digital Metal
America's answer to Napalm Death return after some relatively
obscure time on Deepsix Records with album number 5 and what better
label than Willowtip to bring Phobia back to notoriety?
Like Cruel, I'll keep this short and sweet but not as
scathing. 21 bursts of vicious, politically/socially charged
("Ignorant Americans", "Yankee Swine", "Enemy of the State",
"Fascist Smash Face"),...Read More
Lambgoat
My first experience with Phobia occurred a few years ago when a
friend was trying to find musical common ground between us. Aside
from a handful of classic punk bands that we both grew up listening
to, I had very little interest in most of his favorite anarcho and
crust punk bands. He had picked up Phobia's split with Resist and
Exist earlier that week and he put on the Phobia side. Within a...Read More