Another ugly eruption from Industrial Puke, whose music isn’t so much played as snorted up and deposited with an unceremonious splat at your feet. While the basic mix is still the same – death metal and crust punk, grubbily entwined – there’s definitely been a bit of a shift along the way. It feels like the band are leaning a bit harder on the HM-2 side of things, with the big, knobbly riffs sounding as though they’re weighted more toward Dismember than Doom. Then you have a track like ‘The Regretful Climb’, which has a booming chorus that wouldn’t sound out of place on a High On Fire record – assuming, that is, that Matt Pike decided to go retro and use his Asbestosdeath set-up for the job. Mucky as it all is, ‘Alive To No Avail’ is also thoroughly satisfying: each unhealthy glob hits home and hits hard, with the band smashing through every single riff as though their miserable lives depend on it.
