This record is damn near unreviewable. It is immense. I have put off trying to review it for a while, I even stopped listening to it, because I would play the damn thing and it’d blow my mind out. So I figured I would at least attempt to retain a portion of my mind for the time being. Until today, when I figured I’d just give in, whirl the vinyl and try and commit a few blithering words to the digital paper.
Ok. Let’s think. City of Caterpillar. If you have had the pleasure of encountering their previous releases then fair play but wipe prior conceptions of this band from your mind and start from scratch. Feel free to listen to their excellent ‘demos / live’ comp 12″ and hear how the band sounded before this album. Then let the needle hit the wax and short circuit your record player. This is really quite something. I must stop blabbering like an incompetent, degenerate goon and pull myself together. Right. I’m ready, here goes.
No, it’s too difficult. I can’t do it. Puzzling. This album, monsterous. Riffs the size of Everest, panicky vocals of desperation, instrumental blissout on epic scales, all told it’s a record which I can’t quite fathom and I am not sure I ever will. Hardcore never sounded like this before, and it only ever will again when City of C release another record. This band sits happily on a rather under-populated plateau with the Vida Blue and Yaphet Kotto as bands that take this kind of music and mash it into some kind of original genius. I suppose when you boil things down to their base elements, it’s really just a bunch of guys making a beautiful noise very loudly, but hey, it works for me, and if it doesn’t for you, too bad.
Well, I should stop kissing CoC’s arse, this review just reads like mumblings and pathetic pandering, “ooh, these guys are so good, mwah mwah”, but fuck it – am I just supposed to say “well, I guess it’s not too bad”? No way. Unstoppable.
PS – this is the worst review I have ever written.