Labels: Action Reaction – The Omega
Review by: Andy Malcolm
This 4 song 10″ is just a touch TOO good. And I know it will be as soon as the Jehu-esque repeating riff breaks in to open ‘An Explosion In New Mexico’, and moments later the excellent spoken vocals slide into ear-shot and add a whole Native Nod feel to the proceedings. And when it all seamlessly powers into soaring noise and screamed vocals, I’m left open mouthed. Fantastic. That repeating riff comes back and grooves the whole track superbly, locking me into its rhythm with absent-minded ease. Everything is just building an intense, without battering your ears out – it all combines to give the song its claustrophobic atmosphere, almost disappointing when it ends in its wall of sound and fading feedback. But hey, at least there are three more tracks yet.
‘Last Days Of The Smuggler’ keeps things simmering a long, with its edgy introduction and off-key, almost jazzy chords leading into the song and the shouted vocals, using some incredible shifts from quiet twinkle parts to bruising post-hardcore. And just when you think you’ve heard all the tricks these guys can muster, they launch into Yaphet Kotto-esque hardcore, all pained screams and waves of guitar falling around in one of those end-of-the-world emo specials. Now is the time to die. But you still haven’t heard it all, they haven’t yet laid out the twinkle part that they interlace with the noisier guitars and unload on your battered corpse before you’ve had a chance to recover.
‘Sick Man of Asia’ gets straight down to business with its head first attack, more repeating riffs and body blasting drumming, and highly effective spoken vocals mixed with bursts of screamin’. Classy. And everything comes to a head in ‘Muller’, which bluntly breaks bones and terrorizes you till the moment it finishes, a relentless battering of the senses as it hurtles to its insane conclusion, with a full on swinging emo-groove to fall around too, reminding me of Republic of Freedom Fighters. It’s mesmerising in its controlled chaos.
Jehu meets Yaphet? They called your number. Hear this.