Loved the first tape from Every Face Becomes A Skull, and I think this new one might top it. Things burst into life with ‘A List Of Flaws’, a firecracker punk track that doesn’t even hit the 90-second mark. It’s all desperate, scratchy vocals and stabby guitars, caught somewhere between the taut wiriness of Torches To Rome and the fraught, seemingly randomised explosions of Palatka. The album is weighted toward these brief, splenetic blasts of scrappy emo-punk, though the band occasionally load up on melody and stretch into ‘epic’ two-minute territory, as with the excellent ‘Sleep Invoice’, the 80s indie-skewing ‘Nihilist’s Notebook’ or closing track ‘End Of Year Review’, which, with its downcast arpeggios and quiet, crackly vocals, initially finds itself in Subjugation Records territory. It’s great stuff all the way through, and I can see it hitting home whether you’re a Jawbreaker freak, an Ebullition Records acolyte or someone primarily chows down on releases by bands like Anxious, Truth Cult and Mil-Spec.