Posts Tagged ‘Blacklisters’

Irk / Algernon Cornelius / Care Home – Wharf Chambers, Leeds, 24th January 2025

Posted: 25 January 2026 in Live, Reviews
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Christopher Nosnibor

Irk (not to be mistaken for Lancastrian newcomers Irked) certainly took their time over their second album, so the fact their playing its launch gig four months after its release is fitting.

The last time I saw them would have been 2018, in the now-defunct CHUNK, alongside Britney and Beige Palace (also now sadly departed), at the launch of debut album. Back then, CHUNK – a fairly basic rehearsal space which also hosted gigs – was the hub of an emerging DIY scene which spawned a bunch of noisy bands who emerged in the wake of the likes of Blacklisters, Hawk Eyes, That Fucking Tank. Fortunately, the Leeds scene is resilient and continues to thrive with new spaces and new bands popping up – and Irk are still here, despite geographical dispersal and general life stuff like jobs and families doing little to boost the time and energy available for creative work.

One of the new bands to have emerged more recently is Care Home. Care Home no doubt won themselves some new fans when they landed the coveted slot of supporting the Jesus Lizard last January. Tonight they’re a late substitute for Blacklisters, who were admittedly, an additional draw for tonight, but it’s hard to be too disappointed with the choice of replacement, kicking the night off in suitably noisy fashion. The interplay between the guitar and synths works well and affords them a greater range when it comes to the arrangements. The bass work alternates between a stop/start jolting and insistent solid four-four groove, and when paired with some busy, beat on every beat drumming, they’ve got a sturdy spine around which everything else hangs nicely. The vocals are straight-up, unpretty (post) hardcore shouting, an effluence of nihilism in t vein of Kowloon Walled City.

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Care Home

Algernon Cornelius proved to be an inspired choice, breaking up a rock-orientated bill with some highly inventive and energetic hip-hop. Pulling together a truly visionary array of sources, spanning jazz, punk, and metal and even sampling a Beige Palace song, it’s all going on during his lively set.

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Algernon Cornelius

Irk’s set is a squalling blast of noise from beginning to end. The bass is simply immense. Recorded, it’s not immediately apparent that the sole instrumentation is drums and bass – and not only because various guests add additional detail in various form, but this means that on stage, the fact they blast out such a dense racket with so little only accentuates the impact. But that bass… the sound is pretty varied and big on texture, from the rib-rattling mid-range, compressed sound which resembled tearing cardboard to the bowel-quivering low-end, there’s substantial range. Meanwhile, Jack Gordon hollers and howls through a host of effects and distortion, and this show – like the album itself – was worth the wait.

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Irk

With ‘The Seeing House’, they’ve really honed things and learned the benefits of shifting tempo and tone: ‘Eating All of the Apple’ is the perfect example of how they’ve absorbed the sparser, joltier aspects of Shellac’s output on board. Gordon’s vocal has more range, too, veering toward more gothic territory. And still they slam forth colossal riffs, paired with meaty beats and rabid yowling.

But for a serious band, they just can’t do serious when it comes to their shows: there’s a comedic elements to Gordon’s delivery and postures, not to mention the chat between songs, where he would take time to share wisdom he had discovered on that Internet from the mini-ons, printouts of which he would hand out to members of the audience.

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Irk

There’s something so, so quintessentially Leeds about Irk – quirky, self-effacing, a disparity between the abrasive noise and the affable nature of the people themselves – and they are genuinely nice guys. But this is so often the case: the music is the outlet. And the atmosphere tonight is one of warmth, of camaraderie. A lot of people know one another. This isn’t a scene in the sense of posing, self-importance or smugness, but one defined by camaraderie and mutual appreciation.

Irk’s set was punchy and abrasive, delivering fifty minutes of intensity interspersed with comedy, making for an event which felt like the perfect launch for the album. And I shall treasure my numbered, annotated minion forever.

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Why Patterns – Screamers

Posted: 17 June 2025 in Albums, Reviews
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Human Worth – 11th July 2025

Why Patterns’ latest offering marks something of a shift from Regurgitorium, released back in 2022. I say ‘back’ in 2022 because it feels like a lifetime ago. Some of that is, admittedly, due to personal circumstance, but for most, 2022 was a very different time. We still weren’t all that long out of lockdown, for a start. We were still coming up for air, and finding our way – and likely crawling our way back to the office, while a lot of shops still had their Perspex screens in place. I remember in the checkout queue in Aldi just willing these weird cunts who had seemingly either forgotten the preceding year and a bit, or had lost all sense of how to engage, by looming and leaning over and pressing too close would fuck off. I revisit the context of the last album because it somehow managed to capture the mood in some obtuse way, and when I wrote ‘It’s fucked up. It’s deranged. It hurts,’ I could as easily have been referring to life itself at that point in time.

Screamers is different again. Or, if not so much, different, compressed, compacted, distilled, the intensity amplified by the concision of the tracks.

The crunchy, gnarly bass still dominates, and it’s snarling away and tearing strips straight out of the traps on the frenzied ‘After the Bullfight’. Clocking in at a mere minute and forty-seven seconds, it’s noise rock smooshed down to the tight parameters of grindcore, and with insane amounts of reverb, the stuttering, stammering vocal yelps from Doug Norton, the man behind the ‘Mouth Sounds’ owe an equal debt to Suicide and The Cramps, and this may be the spawning of industrial psychobilly as a new genre. Everything is overloading, the speakers are crackling with megawattage overload, and when ‘Clown in a Housefire’ blasts in, you actually begin to wonder if it’s supposed to sound like this of it your gear’s fucked.

One may cling in references to the Jesus Lizard and all the rest, but really, this sounds like a psychotic reimagining of early Blacklisters – specifically early because of THAT bass racket. But whereas Blacklisters were, and remain, quite song-orientated, at least structurally, Screamers sees Why Patterns take their template and smash the living fuck out of it by throwing it against a brick wall and stomping on it until there is nothing but splattered pulp. None of the songs – I mean, they’re not really songs, more demented blasts of discord played at three hundred miles an hour, all of the instruments playing at angles against and across, rather than with one another, the vocals the sound of a breakdown in real time. And listening to this as bombs and missiles are going off everywhere and no-one knows what is going on anywhere, I fin myself listening to this tumultuous mayhem and thinking ‘yep, they’ve done it again. This is the closest I’ve heard anyone articulate this moment.’ I mean, they don’t really ‘articulate’: as the title suggests, Screamers is a raw, primal scream. It’s a frenzied, lurching, gut-punching racket that rattles the bibs and kicks the balls, hard. Pleasant, it is not. Especially that grungy bass that churns the stomach.

There aren’t really any riffs: it’s just a relentless assault of jarring noise. ‘Nervous Laughter’ brings hints of the latest mclusky album, but does so with menace, malice, and a hint of the unhinged, and following on ‘Wind Up Chattering teeth’ is a minute and six seconds of rabid raving. It’s almost enough to make you want to puke.

Then there’s ‘Club Foot By Kasabian by Blacklisters’. It extends the joke of the original – since the Blacklisters song, ‘Club Foot By Kasabian’ wasn’t a cover, and had nothing to do with Kasabian, and so it is that ‘Club Foot By Kasabian by Blacklisters’ is a minute and a half of squalling, brawling, guitar-led abrasion. It’s somewhat reminiscent of Castrovalva in its deranged intensity, and frenzied, squawking disregard for decency. The title track is fifty-two seconds long. It’s rabid. It has to be heard to be comprehended.

The last track, ‘Buffoons and Barel Organs’ is both the longest and most structurally coherent. ‘Why do I cross the road? Why do I cross the road? Because I’m a fucking chicken!’ Norton hollers amidst a raging tempest of bass and drums.

Screamers is certainly appropriately titled. Every song is a brief but blistering assault. It’s full-on, and will melt your face, and as such, I wholeheartedly recommend it, unless you’re a wuss.

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OMO DOOM – Bugged

Posted: 6 June 2025 in Reviews, Singles and EPs
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30th May 2025

Christopher Nosnibor

With mainstream music, all you have to do is stay tuned to prominent radio channels, watch TV, let Spotify recommend the next tune, and it lands in your lap. The further away from the mainstream you get, the more it becomes about keeping your ear to the ground, word of mouth, groups and forums – and occasionally, press releases and inboxing. Despite being a fan of a number of the acts involved, I discovered this one quite by fluke via a share in a Facebook group, which announced that ‘OMO DOOM , the Glasgow group who comprise members of Mogwai , The Twilight Sad , Desalvo , Areogramme and Stretchheads put out a new track this week, an intensely claustrophobic cover of a Head of David track – the brilliant late 80s UK Blast First act who everyone seems to have forgotten now’.

I’m perhaps one of the few who not only didn’t forget Head of David, but has a near-complete collection of their releases – and I can tell you it’s taken some years to assemble. While their first album – LP, released on Blast First in 1986, and later reissued as CD in 1990 isn’t too hard to find, and has a buzz around it on account of the fact that Justin Broadrick drummed with the band between leaving Napalm Death and forming Godflesh (although he didn’t actually play on any of their releases apart from their 1987 Peel Session, which features on the nigh-on impossible to find White Elephant compilation), their other releases are like rocking horse shit (as they used to say at record fairs in the 90s.

Their second LP, Dustbowl, which featured ‘Bugged’, was produced by Steve Albini and released in 1988. It’s a belter. While I snagged a vinyl copy in the 90s, I have never yet seen a CD copy in the wild, and it’s never been reissued, either. ‘Bugged’ also appeared on one of the 7” singles in ‘The Devil’s Jukebox’ Blast First 10-disc box set, and that’s hardly common or cheap either.

H.O.D.I.C.A. was a semi-official live album which captured Head of David playing at the ICA in London, delivering a purposefully unlistenable set with the explicit purpose of repelling EMI music execs who were sniffing around, and their final album, Seed State, released in 1991 lacked the same brutal force as its predecessors.

The reason for the history lesson is that they’re largely forgotten because their music is so hard to come by, and because Stephen R. Burroughs has pursued a very different musical trajectory subsequent to their demise, with both Tunnels of Ah and FRAG sounding nothing remotely like HoD.

But if you can hear Dustbowl, it’s aged well, a snarling mess of noise driven by pulverising drums and snarling, grinding bass that tears you in half. And this is where we resume the story, I suppose.

OMO DOOM’s version of ‘Bugged’ is slower, starker, more malevolent and menacing than the original which was ferocious in its unbridled brutality. Here, we get thick synths and punishing drum machines dominating the sound. The bassline is twisted around a way, and sounds for all the world like ‘Shirts’ by Blacklisters, and at around the two-minute mark is slumps into a low-frequency range that’s unsettling to the bowels as well as the ears. This sure as hell brings the dirt. The vocals are rabid. It’s gnarly, alright. Fans of Mogwai and The Twilight Sad and the late, lamented Aerogramme may be drawn to this, but probably won’t like it: it’s the work of a bunch of musicians trying something that’s nothing like their regular work, and it’s unfriendly and inaccessible and noisy and horrible… and of course, I absolutely love it. And maybe it could spearhead a Head of David Renaissance… We can hope.

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Hammok – Jumping/Dancing/Fighting

Posted: 5 January 2023 in Singles and EPs
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Loyal Blood Records – 9th December 2022

Christopher Nosnibor

When the shit builds to a tsunami, your laptop’s fucked and all you want to do is curl into a ball and forget absolutely everything, noise is the answer. It’s not a cry for help or even a public moan as such, but sometimes it all gets a bit much. The little thing accumulate to the point where they’re a big thing. You feel weak for letting it escalate like that, but it’s sudden. One minute, everything is ok, and ticking along nicely, the next, you’re suddenly overwhelmed.

Having recently experienced a mammoth rush of excitement on discovering Mammock, I’m buzzing all over again having been introduced to another bunch of noisy fucks, namely Hammock. These guys really aren’t into slouching about, and their debut is tense, wired, and packs some furious energy.

The press release tells me that ‘They sound pissed, frustrated and rebellious, and play their instruments with a nasty intensity and nihilistic ferocity. Imagine a mix of Unsane, Chat Pile and Pissed Jeans and you’ll get a pretty good idea of how these youngsters sound like.’ Obviously, I’m sold before I hear a note, and have to say it’s a fair summary of their seven-song set (although the first and last, ‘Intro’ and ‘outro’ respectively are what their titles imply, bookending five back-to-back blasts of riotous racket, all of which clock in between two and a quarter and a fraction over three minutes. They really do keep it tight and punchy, and pack a lot of abrasive noise into those short sharp adrenaline shots.

The vocals are distorted, shouted, gritty, and are pithed against guitars that crash in from all angles – hefty slabs and thick chunks of distortion collide against scribbly, scratchy runs of broken math-rock noodles, while the bass snarls around and booms darkly and the drums roll like thunder, as exemplified on lead single ‘J.D.F.’

It’s jarring, fast-paced, and buzzes and roars, and it’s not just noise – there are some smart bits and pieces all bouncing about in the mix, often happening all at once. It is, at times, bewildering, but above all, it’s awe-inspiring.

There’s a moment around forty-five seconds into ‘Contrapoint’ where the bass and guitars both kick into a monster riff and it punches you right between the eyes as a ‘fucking yesssss!!’ moment that absolutely seals the EP as a bona fide belter.

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Fucking Lovely – Catalogue of Errors

Posted: 21 October 2022 in Singles and EPs
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Human Worth – 4th November 2022

That I’m a huge, huge fan of Human Worth is probably quite apparent by now, or really ought to be. As a label, they’re the absolute model of the cottage industry DIY label with a social conscience that’s matched by the quality of the music they release. How many labels can you name where absolutely every single release in their catalogue is an absolute fucking banger? And now, it gets even better, as the community spirit can be seen to be an integral aspect embraced by the acts on their roster, as the assemblage of the appropriately-named Fucking Lovely indicates.

Well, it probably depends on your taste, of course: it’s not lovely in the lilting, floral, melodic sense – more in the ironic or sarcastic sense, as this EP is every inch the gnarly barrage of noise you’d expect from the Human Worth alumni who feature in the lineup, which the bio describes as ‘an evolving noise project brought into being by Joel Harries from 72%. Featuring Luc Hess (Coilguns / Closet Disco Queen) on drums and Thomas Lacey (Cower / Yards / The Ghost of a Thousand) on vocals.’

They go on to detail how this record ‘came together through shared connections with Human Worth and brief meetings playing gigs in 2019’; and that ‘the music grew steadily from the initial guitar and drum machine tracks into the frantic and unnerving songs of “Catalogue Of Errors”’ which were ‘recorded remotely between the UK & Switzerland’. It seems like this is the way collaborations will happen from now on. This is probably a (rare) post-pandemic positive: distance and scheduling are no object when it’s possible record at any time and from any distance.

This feels like there is absolutely no distance: it’s the sound of a band playing at ten thousand decibels and right in your face, so harsh and full on that your eyes pop out of their sockets.

It’s brief and intense. Four tracks of jarring, jolting, stuttering riffs and shouting pitched against one another at obtuse angles and colliding against one another in the most awkward and ungainly fashion, for maximum ugly impact and packed into less than ten minutes. Oh yes, it’s fucking lovely alright. It makes your skin crawl and your hair stand on end, it makes you clench and quiver , makes your shoulders tense and your neck stuff. ‘Billy Boy’ is gnarly and full-tilt Jesus Lizard psycho, all dirty guitars, gritty bass and twisted manic vocals. ‘Maximum Exhaustion’ is a soundtrack of relatability, relaying the staggering, stumbling, lurching delirium of fatigue beyond fatigue – also known as life.

The full-on earth-shattering hardcore of ‘Bricked’ draws the EP to a close with samples echoing around low in the mix and the words inaudible, and while angry, sludgy acts are disparate but numerous, I’m reminded of Blacklisters here.

It’s a gloriously demented racket, and it hurts. And it most definitely is absolutely fucking lovely.

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Listen: ‘Leisure Centre’ by Blacklisters

Posted: 17 October 2022 in Recommended Streams and Videos
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The buggers keep doing this: disappearing, then coming back, with no forewarning, no fanfare, with more killer noise.

And so here we are: ‘Leisure Centre’ crash-landed today to herald the imminent arrival of a new EP, out next month.

It’s as good as anything they’ve ever done. ‘Leisure Centre’ has the same kind of nagging, repetitive riff that features in so much of their work, from the definitive early songs like ‘Trick Fuck’ through to more recent classics like ‘Shirts’. And if anything, ‘Leisure Centre’ sounds like ‘Shirts’ on heavy tranquilisers: slow, stumbling, lunging, all the weight and all the murk. And of course, it’s all about that big, churning riff. It sounds a whole lot like Pissed Jeans. This is very much a good thing.

If the rest of the EP is half as good, it’s going to be a corker.

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Moni Jitchell – Clear EP

Posted: 9 July 2022 in Singles and EPs
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Gold Mold Records – 7th July 2022

Christopher Nosnibor

Moni Jitchell don’t piss about, and in deference to that attitude, neither shall I: this EP is an absolute blinder. Crashing in somewhere between Blacklisters, and Daughters, or like Pulled Apart by Horses on speed, it delivers five fast ‘n’ furious cuts in as many minutes, and it’s not hard to figure how the Glasgow duo scored a slot supporting Mclusky earlier in the year with their brand of irreverent, full-throttle shouty noise that’s too angular to be punk, but too punk to be metal, and too metal to be math… The fact they’ve appeared alongside Leeds noisemongers Thank is perhaps a fair indication of the kind of racket they make.

Only they make it louder and faster, and distil everything to the most absolute optimum potency. The songs are formed, with defined structures and ‘clear’ shape – but compacted to black-hole density, clanging and slamming every whichway, frenetic, kinetic, jarring, jolting, whiplash-inducing blasts of sonic violence.

Grant Donaldson’s drumming is solid and holds everything together through wild tempests of stuttering, stop/start guitar that veers between driving riffs and splintering shards of atonality. The vocals are manic, screamed, and unintelligible, but it doesn’t really matter, as there’s no time to dwell on these things. There’s no time for anything at all.

‘Not a Change’ is a mere thirty—three seconds long, with guitars that buzz like a helium-filled wasp trapped in a hot greenhouse. ‘Split’ is only a second longer, while the ten-second ‘Skelp’ is over before it’s even started.

It’s one of those short sharp shocks that leaves you stunned and sweating, and completely buzzed.

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USA Nails / BELK / Cannibal Animal – Wharf Chambers, Leeds, 6th November 2021

Posted: 11 November 2021 in Live
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Christopher Nosnibor

The last time the once-ubiquitous Blacklisters graced us with their presence in Leeds was back in 2017. A lot has happened since then, including some substantial geographical ones for the bandmembers. In fact, there was a time when it seemed as if the band was no more: following the release of Adult in 2015, things went quiet, bar the unexpected release of the Dart EP in 2017 via Too Pure. The arrival of Fantastic Man in 2020 came as a surprise. A welcome one, but a surprise nevertheless. Consequently, tonight’s double-header with associated / offshoot ace USA Nails is a cause for excitement: their fifth album, Character Stop, released just last month is a truly outstanding example of the angular / mathy / noise genre. And what a lineup!

In a late change to the advertised schedule, Care Home’s debut is shelved, with the band replaced by Hull noisemakers Cannibal Animal. Sound-wise, they’ve changed a bit from when I last saw them back in 2018 – less swamp-gothy, more post punk in their leanings, less claustrophobic and with more breathing space in the songs. Yet for all that, it’s very clearly the same band.

Cannibal Animal

Cannibal Animal

The set lands with a throbbing drone before they power into some hefty chords. They’re not pretty, sonically or visually, but Christ, they kick ass. Strolling basslines and wandering spacious guitars shifting into ball-busting riffs. Busting bad moves throughout Luke Ellerington makes for a compelling and charismatic performer as he leads the band through a set that sounds like a collision between Pissed Jeans and The Fall.

The guy from BELK seems to have got his dates wrong and has come dressed for Hallowe’en – or at least made-up for Hallowe’en. The Leeds act are a screamy thrashy guitar and drum duo. They’re as heavy and fuck and there’s a mental moshpit from the off. Shifting pace and dynamics nonstop, it’s primitive and brutal with full on frenzied riffery and screaming vocals. Everything about their sound is abrasive, jarring, angular, although at times it’s a shade thin, and they possibly would benefit from some bass.

BELK

BELK

USA Nails don’t only benefit from some bass, but place the bass at front and centre to powerful effect. And that bass has that ribcage-rattling tearing cardboard sound reminiscent of Bob Weston. The emphasis may be on attack and hard volume, but they fully exploit the dynamics of these. The two guitars are often still for the verses bar feedback, bursting into life for the choruses. Along the way there are some expansive bass-led spoken word stretches that call to mind The Fall, with frequent forays into hardcore punk. It’s a strong set that flips between sub-two minutes and longer workouts, and it’s all killer.

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USA Nails

With the last train to York departing at 23:13 and Blacklisters not due on until 11pm, I was presented with the option of disappointment or sleeping on a bench. I gather that they were good, though, and just hope we don’t have to wait another four years.

Various Artists – Deprived of Occupation and Pleasure We Feast

Posted: 13 May 2021 in Albums
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NIM – 17th May 2021

Christopher Nosnibor

As labels go, Iowa-based NIM is pretty new: established only last year during lockdown, it has to date put out just five releases, initially showcasing the work of those directly associated with the label or otherwise close to its contacts – which is so often how DIY labels begin. Artists unable to find an outlet, or otherwise feeling no affinity with any particular label or scene, decide to carve their own niche by setting up for themselves. And before long, they’re not only putting out their own stiff, and stuff by their mates, but have started to build a roster.

It’s all about ethos and ethics: labels who start up because there’s a gap in the market for the music they want to hear and therefore make it themselves are very different from labels who set up with the express purpose of being a label. But NIM clearly have some ambition, as the release of the debut from Health Plan earlier this month indicated: featuring members of Blacklisters, Dead Arms, USA Nails, and The Eurosuite, they’re something of an underground noise supergroup, and the release felt like quite a coup for the label. And then, there’s this…

Again, it’s a million miles from mainstream, but in terms of pulling together some highly respected – and incredibly exciting – cult acts, this is a flagship release, the kind of thing that is almost certain to put the label on the map, in the way that the first couple of Fierce Panda compilations did in the 90s, and thee On The Bone collections some 20-odd years later, showcasing acts as diverse as That Fucking Tank and The Twilight Sad alongside Wild Beasts, Pulled Apart by Horses and Dinosaur Pile-Up. On the one hand a snapshot of the time, but on the other, an incredible document and a testament to ambition.

And so it is that Deprived of Occupation and Pleasure We Feast opens with a cover of Swans’ ‘No Cure for the Lonely’ by HUBBLE, which happens to be the ambient side project of Uniform guitarist Ben Greenberg, and also features a contribution from Rusty Santos, renowned for his work with Animal Collective, among others, and Obviate Parade, aka Paul McArthur, singer from Damn Teeth – not to mention a contribution from the mighty Health Plan.

Alright, so none of them may be household names, but they all carry some considerable cred in those more niche circles. And, alongside an array of obscuritants, they set out the NIM stall nicely, with an array of dark ambience and noisier efforts. This isn’t about establishing a ‘house’ style or otherwise making a specific statement: instead, this is as celebration of diversity, a divergent array of artists united by their lack of conformity.

HUBBLE’s cover is an almost psychedelic folk, semi-acoustic effort, while Rusty Santos wanders through quite mellow if deep trancebient territory, in contrast to the unapologetic noise abrasion of Health Plan’s ‘Food Grief’ lifted from their eponymous debut. If your tastes are narrow, avoid this: this is one for the eclectivists, and the first three tracks alone are enough to shred most brains.

Gareth JS Thomas’ ‘How You Feel’ stands out as a masterclass in thunderous, percussion-driven abrasive noise, and provides a particularly stark contrast to Obviate Parade’s noodlesome lo-fi neoclassical jazz-tinged meanderings and the frenetic post-punk squall of ###’s contribution, which lumbers hard with a Shellac-style riff and changes direction multiple times over the course of its three-and-a-half minutes.

Deprived of Occupation and Pleasure We Feast is challenging, both sonically and in its diversity: the chances are that few will like everything, and many won’t like anything at all. But those who like some will likely find more to like, because it’s a smorgasbord of weird and wonderful, and is a shining example of artistic collectivism, and Deprived of Occupation and Pleasure We Feast shows how NIM is a hub for a disparate array of artists who are doing very different things, but respect and celebrate that diversity.

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Health Plan – Health Plan

Posted: 13 April 2021 in Albums
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Buzzhowl Records – 7th May 2021

Christopher Nosnibor

Health Plan’s all-caps bio on their Bandcamp doesn’t really tell us much, bujt it does, I suppose, tell us enough in the pan of three short, declarative sentences: ‘HEALTH PLAN ARE DAN, STEVEN AND FRANCOIS. WE PLUGGED GUITARS STRAIGHT INTO A LAPTOP AND MADE SOME POP SONGS. MEMBERS OF USA NAILS, BLKLSTRS, THE EUROSUITE, DEAD ARMS’. Whether or not that qualifies them as a supergroup I’m not sure, but this emerging hub of intersection musicians is proving to be a fertile melting pot, and on the musical evidence of this, their eponymous debut, they are a super group. And of course, as you’d expect, a noisy one.

The album’s eight tracks are an extended exercise in crashing, droning noise rock, and it’s not intended to be pleasant: this is the kind of music where you marvel at the layers of noise as they scrape and clash against one another, feedback shrieking against low-end-grooves, as reverbs bounce off one another in different directions. And maybe there is something masochistic about enjoying this kind of thing, but it’s about sensation, and feeling the sound batter your body and brain.

‘Post Traumatic Growth’ piles in as an introduction, a mess of buzzing bass, relentless percussion, and squalling guitars, landing somewhere between Big Black and The Jesus and Mary Chain, with additional blasts of exploding lasers and blank monotone vocals.

And this is the flavour of the album: motoric and messy, lo-fi and abrasive. The rhythm section holds things down, albeit muzzed up, fuzzed out and indelicately. It works a treat: the bass buzzes and booms, and the drums thump, and in combination they punch hard. The guitars are toppy, discordant and disco-ordinated, slashing away at angles across the linear rhythm grooves.

When they dial it down a bit, as on the altogether more sedate instrumental ‘Fade’, where a thumping bass beat flutters like a heartbeat beneath a current of swirling, meandering sound, the production is still such that it’s anything but comfortable, and it’s not lo-fi, but wilful awkwardness: there’s a cymbal that cuts through the mix at a mean volume, and it’s not smooth or in keeping, but harsh, crashing, incongruent.

‘Vapid Expressions’ comes on like The Fall, like MES at huis most hectoring in a swelling surge of motoric repetition that drills into your brain. ‘Stuck in a Loop’ lives up to its title, a cyclical repetition of a motif pinned to a relentless beat, providing some kind of lull before the acerbic hollering of ‘Cataract’ that drives it to a finish in a frenzy of sax and distortion.

While so many bands take cues from The Fall, Health Plan do so with real style, and moreover, take as much influence from the band’s stubborn refusal to conform, or to pretty up their sound with tidy production. To my mind, punk has always been about an aesthetic rather than a style – primarily about going against the grain and not giving a toss about anything other than pleasing yourself – meaning that Health Plan is truly as punk as fuck.

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