Labels: Digital Regress
Review by: Alex Deller
In which Violence Creeps continue to puzzle, veering further away from the harsh, ravaged sounds of their earlier days and onto something that tends toward the clear and minimal. The guitar parts are still sharp and snaggly, but distortion is only occasionally applied. Meanwhile, Amber’s vocals remain a threatening sneer, but clearer and more distinctive … easily decipherable, rather than something she’s coughed up and smeared glueily along her sleeve. There’s a still a sense of challenge to it all, but perhaps the biggest goad seems to be the band’s refusal to fully engage with the Fang/Flipper dirge we might expect from them, instead hovering around this weird, light-touch mid-point that has the power to grate and prod if not totally lay you flat. In this there’s something akin to Saccharine Trust, the Meat Puppets or Ut in approach: a sense of bothersome chivvying that keeps on working your last raw nerve ’til something in your brain is just about ready to pop.