Cretin

Formed in 1992 by guitarist and vocalist, Dan Martinez, and bassist, Matt Widener, Cretin was the Santa Cruz Mountains' answer to the wave of death metal and grind that was infesting the scene. They spent two years with a multitude of different drummers and ultimately put the band on hold to focus on other things.
Cretin laid dormant while Widener joined gore metal band, Exhumed, in 1994 where he met drummer, Col Jones. In 1996, Widener went insane and left the band to enlist in the Marines, while Martinez pursued a career in video game production. Like a deformed fetus, pickled in a jar, Cretin slept—stunted—in the glory era of late '80s and early '90s grindcore. And when it woke, it was angry.
Cretin was resurrected in 2003 when Col Jones quit Exhumed and the three decided that the underground needed a dose of old school grind. The trio recorded a demo in 2004, titled Cretanic Grind Ambush, that Relapse Records released as an Underground Series 7". Relapse Records then signed the band in 2005.
"We're very proud to be part of the Relapse roster," Martinez says, "a label that has represented grind and death metal for over ten years. We hope to make everyone proud." Widener, who also fronts political grindcore band, Citizen, says, "Relapse is the perfect home for Cretin; really, the only one I can imagine. I'm glad that they're giving us this chance." Jones, who still drums for thrash metal band, Dekapitator, and grindcore legends, Repulsion admits, "I've been with Relapse for years, and I know Cretin can deliver the goods."
In late 2005 Cretin recorded their first full-length album, Freakery, which was released in 2006. Senses were debauched. Eardrums, assaulted. And the cretanic grind invasion gimped onto the scene with live appearances in San Francisco, Balitmore, and Los Angeles, before being placed on hold once again.
Life imitated art as Martinez, after suppressing a lifelong gender identity conflict, pursued the steps necessary to blossom into womanhood. Coming out to the metal scene in 2008 through a well regarded article in Decibel magazine, Marissa Martinez continues to share her transition from gruff metal maniac, to Daddy's Little Girl.
As the hormones settle, and the sutures heal, the band is at it once more, writing new material for an album that promises to be more furious, more fetishistic, and just plain stranger than the first.