The press release for USA/Mexico’s second album, Matamoros, features the words “once you’re comfortably settled in…” which I have to say is an odd turn of phrase, considering this is a turbulent and disturbing slab of vomit-inducing horror.
Blanck Mass – World Eater
Blanck Mass is the rebooted spectrum of Hal and Mother recording an album together (and succeeding) in hell, melting through the goddamn walls faster than you can say Game Over Man, Game Over. World Eater hits hard, full ramming speed, never letting up or letting go. It’s Crank – if Power slows down, it’s all over.
KRAUSE – 2am Thoughts
Man, this is pissed/odd/crazy (delete where applicable). Hey, that’s what you expect from any band on Riot Season though; a label that are the true purveyors of the weird, wonderful and downright ridiculous when it comes to creating a variation on sound that can be interpreted and translated into music. KRAUSE are four dudes from Athens…
Ex Wives/MADEINCANADA – Split 10″
No stranger to these ears – Glasgow merchants of hate Ex Wives are back, frothing at the mouth like Cujo with a broken baseball bat buried in his head. Horror dressed up as music – that’s MADEINCANADA. Hailing from Paris, this noise-rock trio are just as, if not nastier than Ex Wives. It’s as if both bands are trying to be the out-do each other in being foul, depraved purveyors of gnawing, blood-spitting derision.
USA Nails – Sonic Moist
There’s an anti-hero hostility to USA Nails – they marry contempt with discordant punk rock in a way I’ve not heard before and it’s both creepy and refreshingly original. The ten tracks that make up Sonic Moist are laced with defiant and antagonistic bitterness, with a trace of deep arrogant humour punching through the other side.
The Austerity Program – Beyond Calculation
New York’s The Austerity Program are the audio equivalent of Mr Wrench and Mr Numbers sent to ‘take care of things’. Absolute evil if there ever was? Quite possibly. Beyond Calculation, the newest album from guitarist Justin Foley, bassist Thad Callabrese and a drum machine is a razor-sharp offering seething punk rock
Lovgun/Higgs Boson – Split 7″
Clocking in at an impressive 13 minutes and comprising of 20 tracks (1o a piece), this Split EP is a devastatingly short, brutal and indignant attack of short, sharp blasts of power violence, grindcore, hardcore and amusing samples from Glengarry Glenross.
Future of the Left – How To Stop Your Brain In An Accident
In Krent Able, Future of the Left have found an artist who best exemplifies their musical outpourings down to a tea. His art is absurd, disturbing, laced with the blackest of black humour and it looks stunning, absolutely stunning. The inside sleeve to How To Stop Your Brain In An Accident shows the tail-end of an aeroplane disintegrating – poor hapless souls being ejected into the air
Volatile Substance – Soak My Body In Gasoline. Bathe Myself In Fire
Who wants some sick hardcore jams right up in their face? Volatile Substance are four dudes from Oakland who like to play hard and fast, with the kind of blunt, pulverizing determination that you’d expect from a band who’s EP title is a statement on self-immolation.