SEA OF SHIT SELF TITLED

Chicago’s Sea of Shit triumphantly returns from hiatus with a fearsome self titled full length, a pugilistic expression of brutal Hardcore power. Caustic hammer of grinding Bass, turgid stiff armed anvil blasts, scorched guitars form igneous slabs of lumpen, cudgel Hardcore downers aflame in white hot rage, sludgy feedback drenched and almighty pissed, topped off with a commanding bellowing vocal performance of terrifying volume and hissing spite. There’s extensions and complexities within the songs that represent new ground for Sea of Shit and they nail them fearlessly to their mast, some searing bluesy lead lines, post hardcore leanings in the chording and arrangements, and mindless drooling droner beatdowns only adding to their particularly terse, discourteous Power Violence influenced Hardcore sound, inflecting each dynamic swing of tempo or rhythm with uniquely devastating results. A total smile ruiner.

Nerve Altar

Bandcamp

RAT CAGE – ‘SAVAGE VISIONS’

Rat Cage follow up their incendiary 2020 full length ‘Screams From The Cage’ with rancor and vim, ascending their Hardcore Punk to a plateau of powerfully potent, anthemic riff soaked perfection. An utterly head kicking, tory lumping, chainsawing cut of catchy as fukk Kang mayhem, UK 82 knuckle-up bounce and brusque, teeth rattling Mangel, D-Beat & Anarcho Punk, and Punk Rock &Roll each represented within the face smashing mace strike of desperate, furious Hardcore, a barnstorming hosanna to the dispossessed and downtrodden inmates of brexit Britain, terrified drunken rats with callous smirks in the fukking pit of despair. Darkly anthemic throttling chords and soaring, brazen, blazing 4 note blues crusted leads slammed out with murderous intent, wallowing in thuggish harrying melody, a torrent of saturated drums leaping from fast to fucking fast to doomed plod to stomping mid-paced tumble enmangled with total bulldozer mid bloody Bass, and full throated super pissed violent vocal outcry, a voice of wounded despondence and outrage amidst the fire sale capitalist meltdown of england’s post tory social abattoir. ‘Savage Visions’ careens from fist banging Punk Rock chorus consonance to blank eyed Hardcore chord wall with the verve and swagger of champions, an indispensable masterwork of modern Hardcore Punk. This is England ’23.

La Vida Es En Mus

THE DWARFS OF EAST AGOUZA – ‘HIGH TIDE IN THE LOWLANDS’

The Dwarfs Of East Agouza are a criminally undervalued avant-garde power trio whose arabesque synthesis of West African free jazz and krautrock has precious few parallels in 21st century music. Comprised of Cairo-based composer Maurice Louca, Land Of Kush guitarist Sam Shalabi and Alan Bishop of Sun City Girls notoriety, the band’s modus operandi is mind expansion via the scenic route, a fact nowhere better exemplified than on their latest, and arguably most ear-boggling album to date. Recorded live in Brussels, ‘High Tide In The Lowlands’ manifests as two 20+ minute excursions through a teeming jungle of polychromatic sound that once entered blocks off all clear avenues of escape. Zone in or zone out, these are trips where the destination may be predetermined but the satnav has been sabotaged. Opener ‘Baka Of The Future’ ignites in a sunburst of Eastern guitar curlicues before a fitful motorik groove propels the track across the entropy Rubicon and it begins unravelling, tendrils of atonal ambience snagging at the synapses until disorientation sets in. ‘The Sprouting Of The 7th Enterainment’ follows a similar but even more tortuous path, variously channelling the spirits of Damo Suzuki, Sun Ra and Mulatu Astatke whilst remaining wholly placeless and divorced from obvious influence. Like the oeuvres of other absconders from the plane of premeditation (Skull Mask, The Necks) this is music that has magnitude but not direction; scalar fields of pulsating noise that teeter on the brink of complete abstraction yet grip like a vice from first minute to last. The Dwarfs are cruising some strange spaceways here. Hitch a ride.

Sub Rosa Label

BARSTOOL MOUNTAIN – ‘III’

Barstool Mountain is a project of Mattias Gustafsson, they of the astonishingly consistent Harsh Noise unit Altar Of Flies.  ‘III’ represents a high water mark of uniquely textured psychedelic sound design, auditorily exotic Harsh Noise, ramped up to 11 and blown to fucking shit. Known for a meticulous working process, ‘III’ finds Gustafson in a seriously drunken, bad barbarian mood. Purest electronics abuse, audial shapes in unbearably bright migraine-inducing constellation, chunky ruptured analogue frequencies thrown and hurled from the source, juddering and spitting sonic shrapnel and effluence as new forms emerge through force of will, signal choking pedals and caveman divination – fissures in frequencies torn asunder with tumbling sonics pouring out, standing backflips of rotating/retarding Harsh audio. To be honest, even ‘reviewing’ this record at all is laughably redundant – one need only to read Soddy’s word-perfect summation of their Harsh Noise bacchanal in the bandcamp liner notes to understand ‘III’s maximal essence. The man nails it to the post in a way only he can. “Texture. A nice word, wouldn’t you say, settling into the audible dis-course with whiffs of sophistication, complexity, depth…”

Absurd Exposition

Altar Of Flies

HEMATOMA – ‘RELENTLESS BARBARISM’

Impious cataclysmic Black Death War Gore Metal from fukk knows where (I’m pretty sure one of these freaks lurks in Flint, Michigan…) glowering with overwhelming outsider hostility. Anti-dogmatic rhythms blast and groove with near-Industrial elements grinding in mid-pace with an anvil-strike snare; mean, ugly, accursed Guitars casting grind, gore and DETH riffs, damned in leaden fires of booming lo-fi production, a raking torment of remorselessly heavy corpse-bloated Bass, adorned with hazardous, hissing, cackling vocal of the fukked up and perverse, tainted with ghastly effects. Heaving, seizured, molten Death Black Metal of violent persecution, dangerous and fukking ravenous. Like Catasexual Urge Motivation, Black Mass of Absu or Bestial Putrefaction, Hematoma operates in a sound that’s difficult to pin down to extant genre tropes, as it pulls every extremity into it’s carbonised black hole vortex to create absolutely VILE, truly impetuous Black Death Metal for the end tymes (hopefully). Pestilential and sordid, prison Satanism, homeless urban occultism, malformed victims crucified upside down… verminous. Be afraid.

Bandcamp

ANDREW NOLAN & GOD IS WAR – ‘THE HUNT’

If dub-centric music is heading anywhere in 2023, it’s to the earth’s core. Recent releases by such extremist dreadmongers as Sightless Pit, Gorgonn and The Blood Of Heroes suggest the quest to reach the very bottom of the sinkhole, to excavate until rock gives way to magma, is nearing an apocalyptic conclusion. An apposite moment then for serial noise terrorists Andrew Nolan and God Is War to disgorge their debut collaborative album, a confluence of warped minds that harnesses the menace inherent in hip-hop and dubstep and inflates it to Brobdingnagian size. Grinding inexorably through the gears like a meths-powered half-track, ‘The Hunt’ is a fearsomely exacting show of low end strength, every neck-snapping beat and bass tremor pre-marinated in a tank of liquid hostility to maximise its potential for destruction. Killer outweights filler 10 – 0, but first among equals is the sumptuously concussive title track, a slow motion punishment beating ramped up in intensity by a fragmentation grenade of baleful bars courtesy of lava-spitting No Face Krew lynchpin New Villain. Such is its potency, it’s hard not to wish Nolan and GIW had engaged the services of a few more dissident voices to flesh out the feature count, but minor quibbles aside, ‘The Hunt’ is business end belligerence in excelsis and a crucial transmission from dub’s point of no return. Going, going, GONE.

Survivalist Deathcult

Closed Casket Activities

Absurd Exposition