Location: Melbourne
Country: Austraila
Genre: Grindcore
Full Length: A Young Person's Guide To
Format: Vinyl. cassette, CD, digital
Label: Housecore Records
Release date: June 6, 2025
For years now, grind bands worked overtime to push outward adding originality of one kind or another to the genre. King Parrot follows suit on "A Young Person's Guide To," adding humor common to their home country of Australia, according to Metal on Tap.
The webzine features a video interview with the band from June 2025 that I researched while listening to the CD. I picked up a lot about them, including the making of "A Young Person's Guide To" and how they spent time in the studio to integrate clean production and an organic sound with the feral intensity they've established over the years.
The album has gained a lot of recognition since its release and the band has secured tours with well-known acts like Pantera and Gwar, with whom they’ll tour beginning in March of 2026 (Soulflly is accompanying them). The aggression and wrath that drove their ferocious, lustrous grindcore since 2010 make their attitude clear, even when comedically tempered.
After releasing their 2020 EP "Holed Up in the Lair" (rereleased in a compilation in 2022), King Parrot took five years to launch this album with six singles and three promotional videos as an all-out assault on the grind industry. Producing the material in a clear-cut way is designed to sound both professional and brutal, to enhance the stamina they exhibit at pubs with small crowds or fests with larger ones.
The production gives the guitars a kind of raw dissonance and the bass a rumble like fault lines preparing an earthquake while the drums present blast and double bass with as much discernable clarity as the well-enunciated vocals. In many cases, "A Young Person’s Guide To" sounds pushed as far away from classification as possible. The band takes time to add subtle distinctions to their writing in addition to incorporating aspects of death and black metal into their grind themes.
This is particularly true of the bass tracks, which propel the songs in the same manner as bass guitars give funk songs additional weight. There are some moments in the guitar tracks where notes seem to slide, which is as close as I can put it. You have to listen carefully to fully appreciate the unconventional crunch and odd guitar harmonies, and many riffs border on industrial music.
The band's approach to songwriting and composition seems to serve as the foundation for the humor mentioned earlier. I'll give you two examples of this humor in case they interest you in checking out the album. The vocals sound like someone screaming at the top of their lungs, as if to deliberately mock the assumption that metal vocalists only scream because they can't carry actual notes.
Next, their promotional video for "Fuck You and the Horse You Rode In On" begins with a rude patron riding his motorcycle into a pub in Australia, and it turns out he’s disabled as a result of several riding injuries. The video plays like a short film, mostly told from the bartender’s perspective, and depicts the mayhem that occurs when he has his first drink of the evening.
Described by Earsplit PR as "thoroughly crafted" and "sensory destroying," "A Young Person’s Guide To" should lend grind more legitimacy and may even help the genre to increase its popularity given the recent attention they’ve been receiving. –Dave Wolff
Lineup:
Youngy: Vocals
Mr. White: Guitar
Squiz: Guitar
Slatts: Bass
Toddy: Drums
Track list:
1. Get What Ya Given
2. Fuck You And The Horse You Rode In On
3. Cunning As A Dunny Rat
4. It's A Rort
5. Punish The Runt
6. Target Pig Elite
7. I Got The Right
8. Look Away I'm Hideous
9. Glazed And Diseased In Defeat
10. Pissing On The Fist Of The Law
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