Labels: Waking Records
Review by: Alex Deller
So begins the funeral march: the Assistant clock in with a mighty seven-minuter, reminding me why I liked them so much in the first place. They kick things off with an air-punchingly great melodic riff that recalls the Party of Helicopters or Magnets-era Grade before ditching the easy route and taking the song all over the fucking shop, leapfrogging chaotic twists and turns, through a lighter indie rock section and building up into a frantic crescendo that leaves me quite, quite breathless. What an absolutely storming note to go out on.
This Ship Will Sink seem to have been dumped in the same coffin as the Assistant to save on burial costs, though based on this evidence it might’ve been prudent to check for signs of life before hammering the nails in as they still seem to be making one hell of a ruckus. Theirs is a heavy, complex, furious hardcore, seething like a nest of vipers, spewing out everything from finger-crippling hammer-on licks to bastardised Led Zep riffage in an attempt to stop you in your tracks. Once again, a mighty effort, and just as priceless as everything else they ever did.
Takaru are left to round the whole affair off and drag things kicking and screaming back into the land of the living, popping a penny in the slot and using their time in the booth to play three tunes where their companions only managed one apiece. I’m fond of their side of the lp they shared with A Light In The Attic, but I didn’t remember them being this goddamn heavy, taking the Uranus model, stripping it down for minute-long blasts and sounding like a ferocious sabre-toothed hardcore act rather than some damp squib of a band who’ve just discovered what can happen when you put octave chords and a distortion pedal together. Seriously, these are some of the most crushingly brutal tracks I’ve heard in quite a while and rank up there with the very best of them. A stunning way to end another altogether stunning Waking release, a label shaping up to be one of the very best we’ve got.