Stuntman - Art of Burning Water - split - 7

Labels: Bigoût – Dingleberry – Ecstatic Shock – Emergence – Jungle Khôl – SuperFi – WOOAAARGH
Review by: Alex Deller

Not heard much Stuntman stuff, but I mentally lump them in with the likes of Sofy Major, Watertank and Death Engine: on-point but unfashionable DIY muck that deserves to be getting a lot more attention than it does. The song they cough up here is a perfect case in point: tangled and embittered, like one of Converge’s more direct moments distilled down into a gnarled wad of splenetic hatred. It whizzes along with venom and snarling fury, before crumbling down into a cool, slow-mo knuckledrag. Art Of Burning Water serve as an excellent foil, offering two songs that are in a stylistically equivalent ballpark. ‘The Death Of Unconditional Love In The Age Of I-Me-Me’ is like Keelhaul played at 90rpm, all sharp, cutting edges and noise-rock angles delivered at face-melting speed. Their second offering is a Deep Wound cover (‘Don’t Need’) that somehow manages to shave 20 seconds off the original’s running time and serves as a neat, face-shredding full stop to an excellent split release.