Review by: Alex Hannan
As on their self titled debut, the guitar sound on this is an exhilaratingly ugly noise, seeking out wracking, discordant chords and awkwardly spindly patterns. Sometimes linking into the writhing rhythm section and hewing to its bones, fleshing out the precise rhythmic dicing with gobbets of organic matter. Sometimes drowning it like polluted seas on a tidewall. You can listen to it as 6 short songs of brutal yet off-kilter mangel, but the more you focus on the tightly packed details, the more there is to hear: the album repays headphone listening. You’ll find unconventionally structured technical sequences which don’t seem to have been enough of a challenge for some smart ass or other in the band, who will have gone out of their way to find some sideways accompaniment to it that sits almost unsung, almost blurring into the general intensity. You can hear it right from the start in the way that the guitar, bass and drums exchange fusillades of rapid triplets under cover of the medium-paced beat of “Default Face / Filtered Rot”, or in the stuttering, hiccuping blast beats that underlie much of “Abyss”.
Poised/berserk, disgusting/fun grind which ruthlessly avoids any slide from hyperactivity into kookiness, refusing any one instrument the space to say “look at me”. PISS VORTEX throw curveballs of a number of distinct kinds: sludgy basslines on “Default Face”, beatdowns on “Bug chaser”, wonky groove mosh parts on “Failing the Voight-Kampff test.” The casual-sounding segues in and out of this last and the blast beats surrounding it are a marvel. The drums in particular seem alive to ways to deconstruct any given moment, changing the pace around the rest of the band. PISS VORTEX run it all through the grinder: the listener, each other, the song structures, chewing up the scenery until the obviously carefully structured musical fabric seems to dissolve into mutated/organic ebbs and flows. “Patterns of repetition” allows flashes of light into the album’s murky textures as it bursts open into shivering shards of guitar halfway through, an eerie clarion call. The only misstep is the attempt to thread the theme into a busier, harsher texture which doesn’t quite mesh well. It’s the exception in a display of versatility and skill at blending different materials. Tiny flashes of texture take on importance among the short songs, the foggy undersea reverberations at the start of “Default Face”, even the seconds of cymbal wash that end “Bug Chaser.”
“Future cancer” could be the soundtrack to some kind of martial arts body horror: fighting to the death in alleys with bicycle chains and then demolishing bits of people in the industrial blenders of the neighbouring sushi joint while sirens begin to wail. Outside, dogs are shuddering while trying to shit out foolishly ingested teeth. An OTT collection of gory mixed metaphors is the best way to do it justice.
P.S. Check out Indisciplinarian’s roster in general – some gems of Danish metal and grind.