Sockweb – Werewolf (2014)

November 7, 2014

A call on a grindcore group on Facebook for female-front grindcore bands returned the usual list of suspects for someone too lazy to use a search engine, but nestled in that list were two bands I’d never heard of previously, so I guess I’m a bit of a twat for just knocking the Facebook post, but what are you gonna do? Anyway, one of those bands is Sockweb (I’ll get to the other in another post), who I believe are a world-first, being a father/ daughter grindcore duo from this lovely sovereign isle of ours (2021 edit: the band was American, not British). Whilst it matches the super-polished, razor-wire death metal end of the spectrum rather than the messy DIY punk end of grind, it’s still a ridiculously heavy, sharp and enjoyable listen for grindfreaks around the globe.

What might blow your mind more than anything is that Sockweb’s vocalist is a seven year old girl. And whilst it feels a bit weird using bad language to describe how awesome a child is, this is primarily an extreme music blog so I think I can safely say – this kid is fucking awesome. The vocals are, for the most part, shrill yelps of insane, feral venom, made even more entertaining that she’s blowing a gasket over mangling someone up in monkey bars, or beating up bullies, instead of the usual subject matter for this genre. The icing on the cake here is that little Joanie writes all of the lyrics for Sockweb herself.

Musically, multi-instrumentalist Dad (aka Blackula) is tighter than the proverbial duck’s rear end, and with a sweet mastering job by Scott Hull, this is an enormous sounding record. Agoraphobic Nosebleed’s Kat also makes a guest vocal appearance on the album.

(2021 edit: it’s worth noting that unfortunately, the dad in the duo, Adam Young, passed away by committing suicide, leaving a sad and unshakeable shadow over the small body of Sockweb’s work. Joanie would be around 14 years of age by now, and I hope she’s doing OK.)