Oh shit, I forgot Travis Ryan had a side project

Bonus points if you can read Travis' shirt

This isn't exactly breaking news, but it's still worth mentioning. Those of you who are familiar with the deathgrind masters Cattle Decapitation should definitely take a few minutes to check out Travis Ryan's equally brutal side project Murder Construct. This top notch grind machine features the infamous Cattle D. vocalist, as well as members of highly esteemed death metal and grindcore bands like Impaled, Exhumed, Phobia, Bad Acid Trip, Intronaut and more, so basically if you're a grind fan your jeans should be tightening any second now. All the usual ingredients for a good deathgrind band (dissonant chords, frantic blasts, an anti-everything mentality, etc.) are on display, but Murder Construct also put their own unique spin on the music, adding atmosphere and the occasional elephant-marching groove to the equation. If you want to get an idea of what they sound like, the lineup pretty much speaks for itself; think Karma Bloody Karma-era Cattle D. meets Exhumed, then they decide to get really drunk and play grindcore. The production is organic but not muddy as with many other bands in their genre, so it sounds like you're sitting there watching them jam. And speaking of watching them jam, you can do just that with this video of them rehearsing their song "Control".

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iwlv3nTJOfM

Murder Construct's debut self-titled EP is out now via Relapse Records, but if you're too cheap to get it Metalsucks is also streaming it in full over yonder. Since a lot of the members are currently busy with their main projects this band doesn't really do a whole lot of shows, but according to their Myspace (y'know, because anyone fucking uses Myspace anymore) they have a show scheduled in Los Angeles for March 4th, so if you live in the L.A. area you're a lucky, lucky fuck. Leave your thoughts in the comments, and stay tuned for the next installment of Slam Spotlight sometime this evening.

-BK