AXEGRINDER To Release “Satori” July 13th via Rise Above Records

“Satori”, is the second full-length Axegrinder album and the band’s first in 29 years. A jaw-shattering tour-de-force of razor-sharp riffing, insistent muscular grooves and cacophonous industrial scree, it’s much more than a simple upgrade for the duo’s immortal sound: recorded at their own studio with zero outside interference, it’s a wholesale re-invention, as the passion and fury of nearly three decades erupts through some of the sharpest, hardest-hitting songs you’ll hear this millennium.

“We have entered an age of hate and intolerance that thrives under a flag of ignorance proudly being waved by politicians,” Trev states. “It’s the old cliché of ‘divide and rule’. Unfortunately, clichés are clichés because they’re true. There’s still an element of politics but a lot more personal stuff on this album. It’s been 30 years since the last album and although we still hold strong with a lot of the sentiments of our youth, we can’t truthfully say we agree with everything we had to say back then. We’re not in our twenties anymore so we now have life experiences to write about too.”

Back with a vengeance and more powerful than ever before, Axegrinder are already planning their next move. We can only hope the world is ready.

Formed in London in 1986, Axegrinder arrived as the ongoing post-punk melting pot began to conjure ever-heavier new hybrid strains of the hardcore punk and underground metal scenes that were still only a few years old. Following in the groundbreaking footsteps of peers like Amebix and Sacrilege, the band swiftly established themselves as one of the most musically adventurous and hair-raisingly intense bands the UK had to offer.

Renowned as an explosive live band, whether playing in a rot-infested squat or venturing into bigger, shinier venues, Axegrinder cemented their burgeoning reputation with their monstrous debut album “The Rise Of The Serpents”. The follow-up to a trio of widely hailed demos, it was released in 1989 via legendary British metal imprint Peaceville Records and was heralded as an underground classic. A brave, belligerent album that aggressively filtered Killing Joke’s pulsing nihilism through a prism of post-thrash grinding power, it was years ahead of its time.

Unfortunately, the first chapter of the Axegrinder story came to an abrupt halt not long after the release of …Serpents. After years of hard slog around the squats and pubs of the UK, both guitarist Steve Alton and vocalist Trev found themselves becoming increasingly disillusioned with the scene that they had helped to forge.

As the ’90s dawned, Axegrinder were determinedly persona no grata. Decades slithered by in their absence, but the band’s cult status never wavered. In truth, while Trev stayed away from music and the music business, Steve remained an active musician and producer, working in all manner of left-field musical realms. As the years progressed, the two friends started to realize that maybe that show with the Electro Hippies wasn’t the full stop at the end of their story after all. Slowly but steadily, an unlikely reunion became a reality.