Want something unpleasant? Well, the debut full-length from Cell Press is ugly of both sound and sentiment. The band hail from Montréal, and if you’ve enjoyed the swarthy noise-rock thump from thereabouts peddled by The Great Sabatini and Greber then you’ll be happy as a pig in plops with ‘Cages’. Everything grinds and gurns with a sense of straining-at-the-leash forward motion, like a hardcore-charged Unsane or a gym-buff Pissed Jeans who’ve had their sense of humour glands forcibly removed. Riffs chew into each other, mysterious solids are coughed up with each vituperative vocal line and the rhythm section plays whack-a-mole with whatever’s left of your senses. The relentlessness of it all leaves you with scant room to move or breathe, but that’s all part of the album’s perverse thrill. Besides, you were the one wanting something unpleasant – right?
