Give them a casual once over and Oxidant appear to be a maddeningly fast hardcore band who specialise in little more than blisters and scrapes. In many regards this’d be fair, to the point that certain moments might even warrant the ‘fastcore’ tag thanks to their likeness to Hellnation or portions of the Capitalist Casualties back catalogue. If you lift the scabs and have a dig around, however, there’s more at play than neck-breaking speed: every once in a while you can sniff a rangy, gruel-fed Iron Lung or a powerviolent Torches To Rome, while the fact that they cover Hüsker Dü (rather than, say, Siege) also hints at something a bit more leftfield. As a statement of intent it’s very promising indeed, and it’d be cool to see the weirder, wilder elements pulled to the fore as the band develop what’s already a difficult and unforgiving brand of hardcore.