What is dead may never die, and no band stays broken up forever.  I don’t know what rock you have been living under, but Gridlink are back, and that is maybe the best gift we have been given this year.  It’s been almost a decade since Longhena came and went, and while it will be impossible to top a masterpiece of that magnitude, nobody ever thought they would try.  And yet, here we are, Coronet Juniper in hand, and it feels like not a day has gone by since the international foursome called it quits.

Longhena was supposed to be the last Gridlink album, for a wide variety of reasons.  Firstly, because it was advertised as the last Gridlink album.  The band knew as soon as they released it that it was meant to be the end, because how do you go on from something like that?  Secondly, the members of Gridlink are very busy people with many side projects to juggle, such as Mortalized and Discordant Axis.  Thirdly, Matsubara Takafumi was never supposed to be able to play guitar again.  A serious infection led to swelling in his brain, and before he knew it, three fingers in his left hand were almost completely paralyzed.  He was told by doctors that he would never be able to play guitar again, and that seemed to be it.  Except it wasn’t, because Matsubara didn’t take his diagnosis lying down, and months of intense retraining resulted in nothing short of a miracle: not only has Matsubara regained all of his former dexterity, there’s also a new Gridlink album that reunites Matsubara with his frequent collaborators Jon Chang on vocals and Brian Fajardo on drums.  Rounding out the lineup is new bassist Mauro Cordoba and just like that, Coronet Juniper drops into our laps.  To call this a comeback album doesn’t seem like a strong enough statement considering what everyone had to go through to get here, but that is the magic of this album.

The magic also lies in the fact that it does not feel a single goddamn day has gone by since Longhena dropped.  Coronet Juniper picks up exactly where the project left off, mixing ferocious and brutal grindcore with high-minded melody and thoughtful songwriting in a way that is at once somewhat indescribable and wholly unique.  To try to compare Gridlink to anything other than themselves is futile, because there is nobody who is doing what they do, and nobody at their level of doing it.  One listen to lead single and opening track “Silk Ash Cascade” and you know exactly what I mean.  It brings a lot more hardcore energy than I was anticipating, but it’s still a Gridlink song, and when the midsection drops with Matsubara’s guitars and Fajardo’s drums racing at breakneck speed, desperately trying to cram as many notes and hits as they can into the small amount of time they leave themselves on these tracks, I felt a euphoric rush of adrenaline, the likes of which I have not felt since the first time I listened to Longhena.  Chang’s voice is still as abrasive and biting as it always was, and Cordoba’s bass rumbles and grinds in between Fajardo and Matsubara, taking every advantage of the limited sonic openings there are.  In true grindcore fashion, this thing is short and sweet, clocking in at eleven tracks and just about twenty minutes, but not a second here is wasted.  Obviously one of the stylistic hallmarks of Gridlink’s music is just how much they manage to cram into about a minute and a half of music, and this is a frantic album for sure, but there is also so much more than just notes for their own sake here.  The point of Gridlink has been about pushing the technical boundaries of grindcore, and to that end there is no other guitar player on the planet like Matsubara Takafumi.  The things that he does with his instrument defy logic and seemingly the laws of physics, but it’s the moments when he holds back and lays down the melodies that allow these songs to truly take flight that really cement him as not just a great instrumentalist but a killer songwriter as well.  To think that we also lost his gift permanently is devastating, but you hear his joy and exuberance on Coronet Juniper clear as day.

Coronet Juniper is an album that is nothing short of an absolute triumph.  Am I a little biased because of how high the anticipation has been since they announced it?  Perhaps, but it succeeds in every way that its predecessors have succeeded.  To the uninitiated, this is a fantastic way to get into a band that is truly in a category by itself.  To the diehards, this is exactly what we’ve been waiting for.  Long live Gridlink.

—– Ian

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Coronet Juniper will be available September 15 on Willowtip Records.  For more information on Gridlink, visit their Facebook page.