Well, this is easily one of the most exhausting, debilitating albums I’ve heard in a while.
On the face of it, what Retirement do is pretty simple: they bosh out surging, to-the-point hardcore that’s somewhere between Negative Approach and Left For Dead, topping it off with raspy, tongue-chewed vocals that could easily go toe to toe with your favourite black metal act. Attempts at variation are made with nerve-prodding ‘guitar solos’ and occasional smears of monochromatic noise, but for the most part ‘Entertainment Economy’ is just pure head-to-wall savagery.
To start with, this is all tremendously satisfying in an immediate, visceral way. After a few tracks, though, the sheer negative psychic weight causes your shoulders to sag, and from there on in you’re on your way to being ground down into some sort of grey, vaguely sentient paste.
Song titles like ‘Human Meme’, ‘What We Deserve’ and ‘Sell Me Something’ drip with contempt, leaving you under no illusion as to what the band might think about modern life’s infinitely wearying bullshit. Depending on how you look at it, this either makes for a belittling critique of how you spend your free time or a stark reminder that, while you’re idly scrolling your evening away, the gnashing teeth of the void are drawing ever closer.