The Game of Life [Blister] (CD - 2007)

California represents a land of golden opportunity for knuckleheads the whole world over, so it should be no surprise that Santa Cruz's Arsonists Get All the Girls hail from its golden groves. A spastic, keyboard-infected hardcore/death-metal/noise outfit, AGATG play in the sandbox built by veteran acts like the Locust, but they play rougher, wrecking the borders and letting the muck spill all over the schoolyard. No slouches in the instrument department, these boys can play; and the precise, lightning-fast grindcore ingredients in their stew give them a chance to flex their chops. With screeching vocals that are at once tortured and menacing, guitars playing Slayer-like thrash riffs, and new-wave keyboards melting it all down, AGATG thrive on chaos, but it's their control of it that keep them from being just another bunch of fools in a garage. minimize