The Bastard Noise stuff here has Rich Hoak from Brutal Truth on drums. What a team-up, right? Their first track is something I’d suggest people check out if they weren’t yet familiar with the whacked-out world of Eric Wood and were wondering where to start. It’s heavy, sure, and definitely a bit weird, but it’s a digestible sort of weird and the electronic elements are draped carefully in the same way you’d put a shawl over the shoulders of a frail relative. After that, all bets are off. One track is called ‘Putrid Hog People’ and sounds like it should be. The girders rend, the Earth’s crust splits and fumes are emitted. Beasts low in a mixture of rage and torment. And so on. The revivified Lack Of Interest are on the other side and do what they do: fast blurts of Infest-inspired hardcore. They’re so-so, and the sound is… I want to say compartmentalised. It sounds very clean and crisp, like the elements are working in some weird sort of isolated unison. I have no problem with it, but ideally I want that sense of things barely being in control rather than tightly-reined professionalism and fairly stock nursery rhyme cadences. Sorry. Bastard Noise are the main course, basically, while LOI serve as palatable if slightly thin gravy. I know which one I want more of.
