Enjoyed Meatwound’s last LP, but this one is quite the levelling up. They’re still all kinds of aggro, but the crusty hardcore assault has been reined in a tad while the general foulness has been dosed with sludge and noise-rock influences a la Pigs, Deadguy, Rabbits and Condominium. For the most part, things hew to a lunkheaded, mid-paced grind – the pace and gait of a drunk lurching queasily home after a night on the tiles, or a trouble-making goon with a length of lead pipe concealed down one stained trouser leg. Dissonant, crumbly-edged riffs and strangled feedback reign supreme, while the BLURRRGHED-up vocals sound curdled and incapable of being mollified. Buried beneath several layers of grease and neurosis, the rhythm section is up to some interesting tricks: bass lines roll and rabbitpunch, and the thunderfuck drums occasionally give way to interesting electronic experimentation. Tracks like ‘Frank Stallone’ and ‘Pigs, Tu’ knit all of this together marvellously, clobbering you half to death but leaving you with just enough wherewithal to wonder at how effectively they’ve combined so many different types of ugliness.
