CRETIN
Liberation of the Wicked
By: John Gnesin
15 years into our existence as a label, Relapse has constantly sought to expand our boundaries, skipping the 'now' sound in search of the 'next'
sound, and keeping our ears open and attuned to every corner of
the independent and underground extreme music world. Our ever expansive
roster has drawn accusations from some of our most loyal cult members that the label has forgotten our roots in bringing the metal masses the sickest and most fucked up grindcore on the face of the planet.
To those who say "they don't make 'em like they used to", we reply "be careful what you wish forŠ".
John gnesin
³You can crank a blast tempo up to 280 bpm, but at the end of the day it just sounds like a typewriter compared to a thundering old-school 195 bpm Mick Harris blast," explains Matthew Widener, Cretin's enigmatic ex-marine bassist, "Basically, you forward-thinking explorers‹you go take grind into new territory. Cretin will hold down the fort while you do it."
Widener, who is also the founder of the guerrilla-grindcore tactical unit known only as Citizen, knows his grind better than most. The roots of Cretin extend all the way back to the halycon days of the early 90's when Widener and his jamming buddy, guitarist Dan Martinez, conceived of the group's name, logo and even some songtitles in high school psychology class. Having caught several performances of the then up-and-coming Exhumed (who Widener later joined, albeit briefly), the two became enamored with that band's drummer Col Jones who was allegedly "throwing rocks at passing cars from a bus stop"
when Martinez made his acquaintance some time later. However, it would take 10 years, a hitch in the marine core, a mental breakdown and a great job opportunity to finally bring the fated trio to the point where they could begin to really work on the project.
³In 2003 Col quit Exhumed because he got a biochemist position at a cancer research company and couldn't extensively tour anymore. He was also yearning for a rawer sound, a band where he could blast 80 percent of the time", Widener states, on the circumstances that led to
Cretin's recent reformation. "Col is like one of those blind Zen archers,
amazingly adept at the nuances of old-school grind beats, master of the one-footed blast‹a disciple in the Dave Grave school of drumming. He joined Cretin that year, and so it goes that Dan and I got our wish, be it ten years late."
In terms of having a current sound, Cretin is somewhere between 15-20 years too late, hearkening back to the birth of grind for their inspiration. ³As for Cretin's influences, we took a generous helping of Repulsion, added some Terrorizer and Napalm Death, and a dash of Pungent Stench. We're not trying to reinvent the wheel here. We're proud to play in the late-'80s style of such legends."
It is not just the music of that era that Widener and Co. are nostalgic for but also a back to the basics approach to recording. The band shuns such modern niceties of metal production as Pro-Tools, triggers and noisegates, reflecting their desire to keep things purely old-school across the board: "We would rather listen to the classics than over-produced, soulless modernity. We grew up listening to the old stuff, and that's where our hearts lie. I'm not saying that the new stuff is bad, or that there aren't current bands that totally kick ass.
We just see a way of playing grind that's relegated to the textbooks, and
question: Why not jam in that style?".
Why not indeed? This back-in-the-day spirit is apparent in all Cretin does as evidenced by their brief, but crushing vinyl ep release, Cretanic Grind Ambush which provides a foul taste of what the band has in store for us on their upcoming full-length Relapse debut. Yet there is one striking inconsistency in all this, and that is the fact that Widener teaches, Martinez programs video games, and Jones is a biochemist; hardly the occupations you'd expect from three guys who collectively refer to themselves as Cretin. When questioned on the band's moniker and lyrical themes, Widener is all-too-happy to expound on the virtues of those whom society deems void of virtue:
³There are so many bands that deal with porno, misogyny, murder, and occultism that we wanted to do something a little different. There's no murder in our songs. No one dies. Sex is anything but normal. Both men and women are equally subject to absurdity. Satan goes unaddressed; the only gods are the subjects of our songs, the freaks, retards, perverts‹anyone who is different. We have songs about walking midgets on leashes and, in the process of training them to do tricks, giving them the attention they've wanted after being ignored for so long; we have songs about gangs of homeless men who ambush passersby using only their penises, so starved are they for human contact; fathers dress their sons in girl's clothing and make them do fashion shows; retarded people, laughing and clapping, oblivious to the mores of a funeral, make those around them uncomfortable; miscreants who feel compelled to hide their turds in inappropriate places; road kill collecting; feral children raised in chicken coops who escape into the woods and live in wild utopia; anything weird and disturbing. Haven't we all fantasized about doing whatever we felt like? Pissing on children who won't stop hollering and carrying on? Forcing your ex-girlfriend to play in your vomit? Having a single, lopsided breast implanted in the center of your chest and not giving a damn who stares? I tell you this: look to the kid in the special education class, the one wearing a helmet and eating his boogers, and tell me he doesn't know an enigmatic freedom we can't possibly experience when he farts in public and giggles, knowing only that it tickles his ass. We're not making fun of these people‹we're exalting them, because don't they all live in us, to some degree? We're all cretins, what with our bizarre impulses and thoughts; most are just better at hiding it than others. I guess these are all emotional urges we don't express, so it's nice to focus a band on them.
It's liberating."
Cretin's debut full-length, a decade and a half in the making, will rear its
ugly, deformed head in the spring of '06. Their debut 7² ep, Cretanic
Grind Ambush, is still available through Relapse mailorder in quickly shrinking quantities.
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