What a strange thing. This record is a split release between a good label – Planaria, who released the much under-rated Plunger LP (a band that Anasarca fit quite well with, though not quite as good as); and an absolutely useless label – Second Nature, who are home to more shitty bands than should be legal. So don’t let that put you off, just get this anyway, it’s rather good.
I could end the review right there, as I have already said this is good, but that would be cheating. Anasarca are one of those mid 90’s emo bands that never put anything out (there are only 7 tracks here) but must have somehow gotten quite popular, hence they got a discog. The songs are from a 7″, a split, and a demo (one of the demo tracks is on the cool ‘Hand Made Words’ comp 12″), but manage to fill two sides of a 12″ at 33rpm. Which says something, doesn’t it? (It says the songs are long. Just in case you don’t have a record player, and are unable to conjure up such images in your head)
Musically they are all about the mid 90’s. Brooding song structures that build up noisily. Plenty of twinkle, and lots of groove. File them with bands like Embassy and Chino Horde. Plenty of hefty, crunchy hardcore action that rocks out, before descending into a mellow break down. When they chill out, they are more in line with Ordination of Aaron, especially on the wavery vocals. Needless to say, when it gets noisy, it gets screamy (and the guy, really really really sounds like the singer from Hour of the Star). Anasarca certainly were well aware of blueprint for mid 90’s emo, they have all the requirements licked. Such as on “Eugene Debs”, which flails away aggressively for much of the song, before dropping everything and regressing into that minimal, quiet guitar work that always sounds amazing. Of course, it all builds up again before going off at the end of the deep end amidst dual screams and the sound of emo boys rolling around on the floor, tangled in microphone leads, whilst the rest of the band is rocking it out, and trying not to bump into each other.
Definitely recommended for fans of the style. If you are, and you’ve not heard them before, you’ll totally eat this up. Rocking.