The expression of ‘been there, done that and got the t-shirt’ doesn’t come close to expressing the combined impact and experience the four members of Venomous Concept have had on the world of Grindcore. The name Venomous Concept is unlikely role of the tongue for many of extreme metalheads but the names of Embury, Lilker, Sharp and Herrera have a combined Grindcore age of somewhere close to a century. So they know what they’re talking about.

‘Poisoned Apple’ is a product of its combined parts and a true expression of the attitude that made much of Hardcore Punk as influential as it was. Venomous Concept have taken the short sharp shock approach to the album holding nothing back, squeezing out every last drop of their collective Grind knowledge to create an album of such barbaric intensity that despite it’s retrospective tendencies it’s validity in 2008 is hard to deny.

The genres integrity as been dutifully adhered to from the blast beat 3 minute maximum song running time to the very rough around the edges production quality. ‘Poisoned Apple’ even comes with the drawn at home cover art work, thanks to Kevin Sharp, just to give the album it’s final homage to the grainy underground that spawned it. Polished and refined Venomous Concept are not, but not through any lack of talent or creative imagination, every beat and ear splitting scream is there by design; all be it a haphazard design maybe but there deliberately none the less. On this outing we just hope it is not another four years between this and the next release.