1. Is There No Hope?
2. No Savior
3. The White Disease
4. Pressure's On
5. Intro
6. Lustrous Pattern
7. Extinct Utopia
8. Dull - Shit!
9. Choice of Contempt
10. Crisis
11. What Lies Beneath
12. T.A.O.T.
13. Doomsday Celebration
14. Apt for Idiocy
15. Shiny Miserable People
16. Crowd Bites Wolves
17. Piles
18. Oral Mutual Thieves
19. 20-11-02
20. 110th Floor
21. Shop-Worn Veracity
22. Prey of Progress
23. Burst Out
24. Azsir - Ittna
25. Act of Ignorance

album cover was designed by Travis Smith - mixed at Riszas Mobile Recordings

review  by dalia "gryphon_spirit" di giacomo____   

synopsis -   The Art of Today is merciless Grindcore, nevertheless it is rich in variations concerning pace, vocals, technique, influences (Doom too!). ...and above all The Art of Today is POSTMODERN! Relevant Few try to use and saturate the musical space available to this genre through a good creativity, but they don't forget to respect the characteristics of the Old School. For selected listeners only.

In pure Grindcore style The Art of Today is an angry and corrosive album that shows no forgiveness. Nevertheless it is gloomy, armed with  remarkable  tempo changes that provide a good variation in the usual monochromic terror  of the style.  Not only hyperfast sequences, foreboding destruction  and blind rage, no, cause indeed we deal with a sort of richness in pace and in ideas, whose  best example is given by  Doomsday Celebration, where a  slow pounding Doom- proceeding is mixed with a certain raw distortion and deep drumming.  A vision of  raising hell in the true meaning of the concept.  

ALL DISMANTLED SPIRIT LOST
OBTUSE SPHERE SO FRAGILE
NOW RAISE HELL…

The mighty barking  growling vocals provided by Henke Svensson are always absolutely up to the difficult task. By the way,  vocals too provide more than a satisfactory variation of  spectrum, because also many fierce screamings are present (two vocal lines) and  enhance the impressive picture, giving a certain touch of Black , supported  by a  guitar technique that surely can make this album interesting for Black Metallers too. Very often the general atmosphere is absolutely rotten and stabbing like a modern plague can be.  In my opinion this is one of the main features concerning Relevant Few: they are able to underline in music  modern and futurist insanity without using electro- arrangements. It is the kind of distortion and a particular direct harshness, through which all the influences converge, that makes them very postmodern . In few words they seem to me  addressed to new decades (surely not less  than Industrial or Cyber) featuring also engaged lyrics.  But the Art of Today is no album for every Metalhead, sorry. It's selected  music for people who listens to Extreme Death,  Black, Hardcore and, of course, Grindcore. 

Relevant Few , with this second album ( follow-up to "Who are those of Leadership?") definitely show that Grindcore can be more adaptable and varied than supposed,  that the style is able to tolerate developments and hybridizations. Maybe they are not so  provocative and persuasive like To Separate The Flesh from the Bones, but there are many parameters similar in both bands. The same wish to rescue the old Grind school schemes, spicing them up with a new freshness, with constant involvement in lyrics and with a notable soft spot for darkness. 

Through these  25   tracks, Relevant Few  gratify the exploration for extreme  fields and make this album one of the more complete in this style. An album in which evolved inventiveness and  advanced soundscape don't disdain elemental tones.  But attention: not all 25 tracks are top notch, all of them anyway showcase  an excellent sound and a really immediate approach that doesn't want to be polished and manipulated. 25 tracks among which Doomsday Celebration is the longest and the more divergent, while the track number 5 Intro (indeed), that precedes   Lustrous Pattern, is long  7 seconds only, being a kind of electrified transmitter ground noise . 

Wherever you look at,  you find roaring streams and mega-energetic core . The opener Is there no Hope?  is an hysterical fury that embraces a persuasive loop. No Savior is punishing and shows much of fast brutal Death. The white Desease is another hyperfast attack that goes towards Punk, making  bass and guitars work a lot , anyway  able  to slow down a bit from the grinding mayhem,  underlining even more underline to the tortured vocals. Unrelenting, very punished, totally angry and violent,  Pressure's On acts like voice of the futuristic horror. Lustrous Pattern is one of the tracks with bigger musical value, being a fusion between fast Death and  more melodic steamhammering loops, propelled by  agile drums. 

Extinct Utopia, in spite of the tempo change and  of  all the care put in it, is just very distorted aggression, it is  really only shouted madness and noise, consequently i don't like it at all . Dull- shit is ferociousness pure  lasting 15 seconds. Followed by Choice of Contempt that, apart the rolling reverberant final is another  blind ferocious track and not much more. On the contrary Crisis shows more variability in vocals and, though  very schizoid, puts forward  more ideas, as well as What lies beneath that sets guitars and vocals on fire in a wonderful way (according to the rules of the genre of course!), moreover here the  technique is very inventive between Black, Punk  and Modern. 

The title track  T.A.O.T. begins gloomy atmospheric and dark with a high melodic though menacing intro. Placed in the very moment when you cannot believe to your ears, it's the instrumental TAOT that gives the definitive stroke of genius opening the formidable gloomy  slow impending and emotional interlude , which  goes further with the doom-y hypnotic Doomsday Celebration.  

Crowd bites Wolves has much of US death inside. Piles is launched by an interesting shouted, cadenced intro. Oral Mutual Thieves is an  hyperfast "Scream" that lasts 11 seconds with an impressive final echo: the track that could represent the musical counterpart of the picture The Scream by Edvard Munch . 20-11-2002 another ground noise-intro - track. 110th floor is very  pounding and extremely heavy as well as Prey of Progress. Azsir-Inha is the second instrumental track,  very menacing à la "day after". Act of Ignorance starts doomy and develops in climax the last fierce attack.

The Art of Today  is a protest, is a storm, is a postmodern "ripper" .

Rating: 8.8/10     

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