Aural Aggravation

Fucking North Pole Records/Blues For The Red Sun – 16th February 2024

Christopher Nosnibor

One might think that after Anal Cunt, Scraping Foetus Off the Wheel, Rapeman, Cancer Bats, and Dying Fetus, all of the band manes people would find problematic had been exhausted, or otherwise people would have grown immune to blunt shock tactics. Yet it seems that Nordic heavy noise rockers Barren Womb have found a moniker capable of touching a nerve for its poor taste. I’m by no means about to invoke wokeism here, but we do seem to have witnessed an enhanced level of sensitivity in resent years. I can’t ever criticise anyone for calling out of sexism, racism, double standards, or general cuntiness, and wince when I see many of the predominantly right-wing wankers defending ‘free speech’ as a right to be offensive, racially, homophobically, or demeaning the poor or the disabled. But being overtly offensive simply because? Shock still has its place and its merits, and I’m more shocked that people are still shocked than by the shock itself. On balance, Barren Womb likely sits more in the ‘crass’ bracket than the overtly offensive, but it’s perhaps not really my call to make, and I’m here primarily to judge the album on its merits.

They’ve been going since 2011, since when they have ‘been raising both eyebrows and hell with their minimalist approach, earsplitting volume and defiant experimentation’, although it’s only recently that they’ve registered on my radar ahead of the release of fourth album Lizard Lounge, ‘a bombastic slab of modern noise rock in the vein of Daughters, Metz and Viagra Boys, to critical acclaim through Loyal Blood Records in 2020’ – I said of it that it was ‘wild and loud and absolutely hits the spot.’

Their bio informs us that ‘The duo make efficient use of crude dynamics and the power of the riff to hammer their point across’ and that ‘They have played close to 300 shows in the US and Europe so far, sharing stages with among others Entombed A.D., Voivod, Conan, Nomeansno and Årabrot, and have played festivals like SXSW, by:Larm, Tallinn Music Week, Øya and Pstereo.’ Clearly, then, the name has been no significant obstacle to their reaching an audience – and they’ve once again hit the spot with this effort.

Chemical Tardigrade is an absolute beast of an album. ‘McLembas’ blasts out of the traps an explosion of raging overdriven riff-fuelled fury. The barking vocals are pure fire, screaming a stream of references from the Bible to Fight Club and the guitars are lean, strangled, and sinewy before detonating hard enough to collapse buildings. The power of the drums is a real not-so-secret weapon: they’re up in the mix, but also really thick, and dense, with the kick and snare dominating and the cymbals backed off, the result being a full-on percussive pummelling.

If the feel is raw, rowdy punk, there’s also whole lot more to it than lump-headed fist-pumping choruses ‘Bug Out bag’ is more hardcore than grunge, and blasts into full-throttle punk, and ‘Campfire Chemist’ comes on like Fugazi playing while the studio’s on fire, before the flames lick at their heels and they ratchet up to the screaming mania of early Pulled Apart by Horses.

They’re not without humour, as titles like ‘D-Beatles’ ‘Dung Lung’, and ‘Batchelor of Puppets’ indicate, the latter, as a single cut, stands out, but it’s a ball-busting blast from beginning to end, with D-Beatles being a raging explosion of frenzied crust punk, marking another of many twists and turns in their expansive palette of mangled noise. It’s hard to credit that just two people can produce quite this much racket. ‘High Fructose Napalm Syrup’ is every bit as explosive and crazed as the title suggests, some hefty minor-key power chords lumbering around some frenetic drumming. They save the hardest and heaviest for the end, with ‘Dung Lung’ going all-out at the front end before surging to a melodic and uplifting climax. And for all the fury, all the weight, all the volume, all the intensity, there’s a sense of fun which filters through the entirety of Chemical Tardigrade, which makes the experience ultimately – and unexpectedly – enjoyable.

AA