Posts Tagged ‘Southern Lord’

Excel – Seeking Refuge

Posted: 5 August 2024 in Albums, Reviews
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Southern Lord – 19th July 2024

Christopher Nosnibor

Southern Lord have once again excavated a long-lost release from the California underground scene, with a particular emphasis on hardcore and metal from the late 80s and early 90s, this time with a reissue of Excel’s 1995 album Seeking Refuge.

For context, while saving myself typing some inferior paraphrased recap, here’s the summary from the bio: ‘From the dark alleys and dead ends of Los Angeles, EXCEL have been delivering maximum crossover since crossover first crossed over. Their classic albums Split Image (1987) and The Joke’s On You (1989) remain linchpins of the genre decades after their release… Originally released in 1995 while grunge dominated airwaves and MTV, Seeking Refuge offers a glimpse at an EXCEL many have never heard before. Out of print for decades, Seeking Refuge will finally get its due, complete with a guest shot from H.R. of Bad Brains (on “Take Your Part Gotta Encourage”) and a video starring Tony Alva for the anthemic single ‘Unenslaved.’’

This is clearly one for fans first and fore most, but equally, one assumes its purpose is to bring the band, and the release, to a new audience, namely the many who missed it the first time around. And there will likely be many – like me – who simply hadn’t encountered the band previously. On the basis of the above, I suspect this isn’t really the optimal point of entry, but then, that’s how it often goes. I came to The Fall by Kurious Oranj and Swans via Children of God: arguably not the most representative of releases, but then again, comparatively accessible. I figure this is a fair summary of Seeking Refuge. It’s certainly an odd fish, and one that sounds solidly rooted in the early 90s.

Opener ‘Unenslaved’ is a bit hair rock meets late 80s thrash for the most part, and reminds me why I was never really into either; there’s just something about the guitar posturing, paired with the clean vocals trying to sound a bit tough that’s kind lame to my ear and to my way of thinking. But it goes a bit acoustic Alice in Chains in the middle, and the idea that ‘crossover’ may actually be represented by a stylistic switch mid-song.

There are some monster, churning, grungy riffs across the album: ‘Take Your Part Gotta Encourage’ is exemplary, not least of all because the chuggeracious thunder is topped with some really showy and extravagant soloing which isn’t afraid of hurtling headlong into the realms of excess.

In terms of composition, the songs are tightly structured, often making sharp turns or tempo changes midway through: ‘Drowned Out’’ suddenly slams on the breaks and drops to a slow Sabbath-esque riff that’s more of a head-nodder than a headbanger, and kicks the pace up again for a big riff finish – but again, there’s some epic fretwork that just feels that bit too much like the worst of 70s rock excess.

For all the context that suggests that Seeking Refuge was lost on account of its being out of step with the zeitgeist, it seems to overlook just how much grunge stuff was quite in thrall to 70s rock and this isn’t a million miles from Soundgarden, unless people are really going to bicker over the details. Don’t get me wrong: there are some proper metal moments: ‘Riptide’ really cuts hard, but still takes cues from Sabbath’s ‘Supernaut’, while ‘Overview’ sounds for all the world like a Rage Against the Machine rip. Seeking Refuge is solid, but not incendiary, and the endless fretwanking does get tired after a time.

With secondhand prices for the original vinyl sitting at around £35, and for the CD around a fiver, I do wonder just how badly the world is itching for this, but then, perhaps this reissue will spark renewed interest more broadly.

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Listen: ‘The Eye of Destiny’ by †The Lord† and Marthe

Posted: 2 December 2023 in Recommended Streams and Videos
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Following on from Marthe’s incendiary debut Southern Lord full-length, Further In Evil, released this October, she now teams up with †The Lord† (Greg Anderson) to release two brand new collaborative tracks, ‘The Eye Of Destiny’ and ‘Wisps of the Black Serpent’.

Marzia comments on this collaboration:

“Collaborating with The Lord was an exciting challenge, and something new, and stimulating to me. I don’t usually deal with such soundscapes and when Greg asked me to add vocals and drums to ‘The Eye of Destiny’, I accepted. The track was intended by Greg to be a tribute to Quorthon (Bathory), an artist who has been a huge influence on my moods. I had started to add in battle-drum beats, but soon faced the hard task of using words to describe what (to me) is the most talented artist of all time. How to contribute in words what I can’t even process in emotions?”

She continues, “There’s the person behind it, and along with the talent there’s the reality of the loss, since he’s not here anymore to witness the legacy of his sound. What’s left of his feelings on his blog, his emotions, his development as an artist and as a person and that spark in his eyes. The eyes are the mirror of the soul, we say. And I was reading some notes he left on a letter and it went something like "may the eye of destiny be wild with you and show you the right way through life". "The Eye of destiny" was an evocative image to me, to picture in my mind the aura of his memory, as a human being and a musical genius. As words are dominant in a tribute, it was impossible, in the most humble way, to find words for him. So, I took his own words: checked all the lyrics and made a caviardage of words that in the end composed a tribute in what I considered the most honourable way possible. I love the final result, it’s my small tribute to a musical giant.”

Listen to ‘The Eye of Destiny’ here:

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Heroin – Discography

Posted: 8 August 2023 in Albums
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Southern Lord – 28th July 2023

Christopher Nosnibor

Southern Lord are at it again, with an archival release of a cult hardcore act whose legacy is larger than its output, following the BL’AST and Neon Christ releases. It’s truly a joy to see the label move beyond its immediate back garden of drone and doom to use the platform its created to showcase the bands without which it likely wouldn’t exist. Originally released for Record Store Day, this second issue comes on vinyl and digital formats, it’s a comprehensive retrospective, which contains ‘all of the out of print 7”s and 12”s, compilation tracks, as well as the session the band recorded at the infamous Inner Ear Studios in Washington, DC, and never heard before unreleased songs.’

Existing for only four years, releasing just eighteen songs in that time, they’d called it a day before most people even heard of them. Like so many short-lived bands, their impact and influence only began to spread posthumously. There’s something genuinely cool about this, with bonus point for not having reformed, staying true to the original hardcore ethos.

As the accompanying notes observe, ‘the fact that the band’s entire output plus unreleased material, numbering thirty songs in all, fits – quite comfortably – on a double LP speaks for itself in many ways. Yes, this is hardcore, and you know the score: fast, furious, faster, more furious.’

Listening to Discography, it’s not pretty, and some of the recordings are pretty ropey. And ropey isn’t just ok, it’s good. It’s raw, it’s real. If it’s clean and polished, it ain’t hardcore.

This is indeed fast and furious, and utterly brutal, and triumph of bass and raging guitar-driven noise, The thing that’s hard to assimilate for me, being the age I am, is that 1993 was thirty years ago. Hardcore exploded in the mid-80s and was still in its heyday early 90s, parallel with the emerging grunge scene. Nirvana’s Bleach espoused the same values. And listening to Discography, what’s remarkable is the sound. It’s no-fi, it’s dirty, it’s gnarly. With the exception of perhaps black metal and crust punk, there aren’t really any other genres that hold such low production values in such high esteem. The gnarlier, the more authentic. And this is gnarly alight. Some of the tracks are barely above four-track portastudio tape quality. But too look at the context: four-track cassette portastudios were still hugely popular until the mi-late 90s. The world has changed beyond recognition in the last thirty years, meaning that recordings from the late 80s and early 90s feel like they’re nor not so much a lifetime, but another world.

Of the thirty tracks here, only three extend beyond three minutes. And yet, within these concise packaged of noise and fury, they somehow find room for some gentle, even borderline experimental passages. Heroin had range, and texture. But of course, first and foremost, they had fury and they had fire, and they had rage and volume. And Discography is essential listening.

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BL’AST! – Manic Ride

Posted: 5 March 2023 in Albums
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Southern Lord –10th March 2023

Christopher Nosnibor

Ask people to name a hardcore band and any money they’ll say Black Flag, but anyone who knows their stuff will likely also mention BL’AST. BL’AST stand as one of the definitive hardcore bands, formed in 1983 and releasing their first album, The Power of Expression in 1986, having recorded it three times.

The story goes – according to the band’s bio – that in June of 1988 BL’AST! went into the studio with Black Flags’ live sound GOAT: Dave Rat (RATSOUND), and the breakneck Take The Manic Ride was recorded. This version was later destroyed after the band was dissatisfied with the original production, with a rerecorded version being presented to the public in 1989.

It perhaps seems ironic that a band as raw and immediate as BL’AST should spend so much time faffing about in search of achieving the ‘perfect’ recording, when the finished article sounds so… unpolished. But of course, that’s the point and the key issue: many bands who are live acts first and foremost find their sound stunted, diminished, compressed and ultimately rendered weak and lacking in bite when attempting to capture the experience in a studio setting. The studio is a sterile environment, clinical, and few producers really get the concept of not actually producing a band. Hardcore is about tearing your guts out with vitriolic rage. The studio is never going to be the best environment for channelling it.

This is the stuff of music legend: the master tapes for that first version were destroyed and were never to be recovered, but as Southern Lord detail, ‘Through some incredibly magical surgery a new heavy as fuck version of the album has been produced.’

Perhaps predictably, Manic Ride is a mess of furious noise and aggression, abrasive and angry. While the Southern Lord reissue isn’t leagues different from the Blast First original, it’s very clearly a different mix. Hardcore (sorry) fans will likely be divided over the mix, whether it’s better or worse or whatever and there’s no right or wrong really. This version is crisper and clearer but also fuller.

What really matters is that this key album is back out there, and if it divides fans, fine. It’s back in the public domain, and will, with any luck, introduce new listeners to the band and their legacy.

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Watch: ‘Yaman’ by The Lord + Petra Haden

Posted: 24 October 2022 in Recommended Streams and Videos
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Devotional is the new collaborative release from The Lord (Greg Anderson of Sunn O))), Goatsnake and Engine Kid) with vocalist and violinist Petra Haden.  The album is a rapturous and heady offering of wordless vocalizations, droning guitars, and heaviness explored in unexpected and intoxicating ways.  On Devotional, through a haze of incense, flowing robes, and secret mantras, Petra Haden’s voice rings out over constant drones in ecstatic chants throughout this musical investigation into the myriad of ways in which worship can lure and intoxicate. This is a journey that Haden and Anderson go on together, the guitar and vocals combined like the call and response of a guru and its congregation.

Petra Haden first worked with Greg Anderson during his time in Goatsnake, as well as on the second SUNN O))) studio album, ØØ Void.  Now, two decades later, the duo reunite for Devotional.  Anderson comments, “It had been about 20 years since we had recorded together and Petra is as she was then: a master improviser and otherworldly vocalist.” Haden continues, “It was so much fun getting to play and sing on SUNN O)))’s album ØØ Void. 20 years later, I’m on stage with them at The Mayan Theater in Los Angeles singing and playing on the encore. I was in heaven! After the show, Greg and I talked about working on more music together. When I heard his ideas, I already had melodies in my head. I recorded some ideas at home and it developed from there. Greg is a really deep listener and he’s so much fun to work with. Getting to collaborate with Greg reminds me why I love to sing and improvise. I feel free and happy. That’s what music is all about."

Watch ‘Yaman’ here:

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Photo credit: © Steven Perilloux

Listen: ‘Imposing Hammers Of Cold Sorcery’ by High Command

Posted: 18 October 2022 in Recommended Streams and Videos
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High Command shares a second track from their forthcoming full length album Eclipse of the Dual Moons, arriving 25th November via Southern Lord and produced with Seth Manchester. The new track, ‘Imposing Hammers of Cold Sorcery’, is a hefty and atmospheric track which tells the story of a perilous quest. In the band’s words…

“’Imposing Hammers Of Cold Sorcery’ is a sonic conquest of ancient lore. A testimony of fortitude peering into the eyes of obliteration. Following an attack from a celestial horde, the Four Realms are cloaked in apprehension. On a fabled whim of the long forgotten Guild Of Sage, Dikeptor & the Infernal March must endure the frozen winds and scale the perilous cliffs of the Serrated Peaks. What lies beneath the clouds is a formidable mystifying power."

Swords and metal go hand in hand. That’s what crossover thrash band High Command say, having turned heads with their debut album Beyond The Wall of Desolation (2019).

“Our love for the bay area in the 80’s is certainly no secret. Besides some of the more obvious influences we have I think we were much more comfortable exploring some of the less obvious stuff we hinted at with the first record. Particularly traditional heavy metal (Dio, Mercyful Fate) the south’s interpretation of the bay area (Exhorder, Obituary, Nasty Savage, Devastation, Rigor Mortis) first wave black metal (Bathory, Hellhammer/Celtic Frost). Of course all of this executed with the discharge, Cro mags, Sacrilege DNA that runs through our veins”.

But it’s not solely metal music which influences the band, who cite the lustful violence of Robert E. Howard, Michel Moorcock, Jack Vance and many other legendary pulp writers of the 20th century as an impetus for their expansive storytelling.

“People would also be surprised to hear we drew quite a bit of inspiration from the music of Ennio Morricone, especially in regards to writing some more of the epic, grandiose passages and chord progressions.” says the band.

Now, with their second album, Eclipse of the Dual Moons, the band take their love of storytelling a step further, deepening and widening the world of Secartha, the realm of High Command’s songs. The band place themselves as omniscient narrators of the world they have created, and say that they are inseparable from Secartha and its people.

“It’s one thing to make a good metal record, but it’s another to put on top of it a sort of overarching story that makes sense to listeners. The whole High Command project is enriched by lyrics articulating characters, a world, and trials faced within it. We want our records to be immersive and leave listeners with a feeling they’ve experienced something bigger than the music.”

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Listen: Forest Nocturne demos by The Lord

Posted: 30 July 2022 in Recommended Streams and Videos
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Southern Lord continues the label’s prolific output with the release of a new album: Greg Anderson’s debut full-length as The Lord, Forest Nocturne, which we recently reviewed here at Aural Aggro.

Additionally, The Lord has unveiled the Forest Nocturne demo recordings, originally only available on the Daymare Records Japanese CD edition, now available via Bandcamp.

You can get your lugs round the demos here:

Forest Nocturne sees Anderson (guitarist of SUNN O))), Goatsnake & Southern Lord curator) taking cues from legendary film composers: John Carpenter and Bernard Hermann, in order to create cinematic landscapes which are heavy with tension, and offset by the injection of lethal doses of early 90s Scandinavian Death Metal – with Attila Csihar (of notorious Norwegian black metal band Mayhem & frequent SUNN O))) collaborator) lending his putrid vocals to final track "Triumph of the Oak."

For Forest Nocturne, Anderson worked with renowned producer Brad Wood. Dan Seagrave’s epic and fantastical style is instantly recognisable on the album’s startling artwork, something which seems to depict an ancient and unknowable force in the woodlands. Forest Nocturne is described by Anderson as “music of the night,” but inspired by imagery conjured on daytime hikes, and majestic, beautiful trees, which he sees as survivors – perhaps the last known connection that we have to an ancient world, and acting as a connector between past, present and future of the human race and of our time on this planet.

Greg Anderson began making music in the mid-eighties with hardcore bands False Liberty and Brotherhood before refining his musicality during the nineties with the post-hardcore collective Engine Kid. From that point on, the musical direction started shifting, channelling his love of tone, riffs and repetitive sound, vital elements that feed into the meditative cosmos of SUNN O))), and the ‘low and slow’ sounds of Goatsnake, both of whom find different ways to move beyond confines and tropes of their respective sound worlds.

In August and September 2021 respectively, Greg Anderson released two singles under the name The Lord; "Needle Cast" with Robin Wattie (the unmistakably emotive vocalist of BIG|BRAVE) and "We Who Walk In Light" with William Duvall (of Seattle rock legends Alice In Chains and hardcore-punk group Neon Christ). Unintentionally moving in a different direction from those bands within which he found his feet, Anderson was able to take on the mantle of The Lord in a new, pictorial approach to heavy music. Through this process, he found himself moved to collaborate with vocalists he admires.

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The Catatonics – Hunted Down (reissue) / The Lord – Forest Nocturne

Posted: 19 April 2022 in Albums
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Southern Lord – 23rd April 2022

Christopher Nosnibor

Covering multiple works in a single review feels like a major short-changing exercise, and I feel I should apologise to the artists involved in advance. It kind of depersonalises and maybe even cheapens the coverage, and I remember how I felt when the book version of my PhD thesis finally received a review, only to find that it was in an article alongside three other books. It may have been a paragraph of praise, but nevertheless, it was a solitary paragraph in a long article. Nine years of work, 90,000 words and 300 printed pages given a one-paragraph thumbs up… meh. But still, better than a thumbs-down or no paragraph.

A decade on, it’s still not settled with me, and I always try to do better. But sometimes, bundling makes sense and feels justified and this is one of those times.

Having spent many a virtual column inch in recent years bemoaning how Record Store day has made a deep descent from being an event that served to raise awareness of independent record shops to another cash-in for major labels cranking out shitty reissues on limited colour vinyl to wring yet more funds from completists while at the same time driving some of the most shameful scalping activity anywhere on line, it’s a relief to find something positive about RSD 2022.

That something comes of course from an independent label in the form of Southern Lord, who, as a sidenote, had commendably stuck to producing outstanding vinyl releases regardless of trends, fashions, popularity, or Record Store Day, and, admirably have continued to release whatever the hell they please, with a catalogue that’s an equal balance of cult hardcore punk re-releases and cutting-edge works of crushing weight that perpetually push the parameters of metal, with recent releases from Neon Christ and Big | Brave highlighting the polarities of the label’s interests.

This pair of RSD releases exemplify this span to perfection, and while admittedly one is a reissue, the other very much is not – and as such, they represent the label’s standard release scheduling. As the press releases outline, ‘The Catatonics were one of NYC and Syracuse’s pioneering hardcore punk bands…While the band’s seminal Hunted Down EP has remained one of the most highly sought-after releases of the genre, the heightening collector’s price made this 7” inaccessible to most people. Southern Lord has now elected to re-release this EP as a 12”, with bonus tracks.” And, meanwhile, Forest Nocturne is ‘the first full length solo venture of Greg Anderson, under the moniker of The Lord. Inspired by the great horror film composers of the 70s and 80s, Anderson turns his back on the riff worship of Goatsnake or SUNN O))) and instead creates a truly unsettling atmosphere heavy with tension, offset by 90s Scandinavian death metal’.

The Catatonics release certainly gives value for money: the original 1984 7” released on Anorexic Nympho Records featured five tracks: this reissue features a whopping eighteen. Following the bonus intro cut if ‘Descending in E’, the original EP accounts for tracks two to six, while the rest is an almost exhaustive gathering of compilation tracks, early demos and live recordings, all remastered from original tapes. Only two of the eighteen songs run beyond three minutes, with most clocking in under two, and this is rough and ready, ball-busting full-throttle, relentless fury, nonstop-pounding hardcore at its rawest and most furious, and the live cuts are particularly raw and brutal, making this a unique and comprehensive document of another underground band’s short but high-impact career.

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The Lord’s debut is a very different proposition: it’s clearly contemporary for a start, although it’s steeped in vintage metal stylings, and driven by an understated and simple but gut-churning bass that digs tunnels beneath your ordinary lives. Forest Nocturne is an album that twists and turns, and more significantly, gnaws like rodents, and like woodworm, at the smooth, flat planes of sonic normal. I say ‘normal’, as if that’s a thing – but The Lord conjure vast aural expanses, broad vistas that invite the listener to bask in the rich density, before tearing it to pieces.

A slow, swelling church organ droned doomily on ‘Church of Hermann’, a piece which is truly awe-inspiring. This is an instrumental album that definitely marks a departure for Anderson and feels more like early Earth than Sunn O))). Then again, it’s doesn’t really sound or feel like either.

Thick swells of strings that build into brooding, megalithic waves, define the power of this instrumental work. ‘Forest Wake’ starts with the wail of a siren, and brings bulldozing bass and power chords wrapped in gut-punching clouds of distortion. Those clouds dissipate for a time, and the atmosphere looms large and heavy as things unfurl, but take a moment to breathe and there’s nothing to see here other than smoke and that absence… It grinds, and it absolutely fucking kills, going full Sunn O))) drone doom on ‘Old Growth’. Forest Nocturne is hard and harrowing, immense, epic, beautiful, and yet at the same time devastating. The last track, ‘Triumph of the Oak’ is a new shade of heavy, an angering mess of thrashing chords that crashes down so, so hard.

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Finally, thanks to Southern Lord, there are releases that are actually worth getting up and queuing for at the weekend.

Thurston Moore – Screen Time

Posted: 19 February 2022 in Albums
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Southern Lord – 25th February 2022

For many, the days of the longest, hardest lockdowns are, it would seem, behind us. And yet the shadow of the pandemic continues to hang long as dark; it’s hard to move on and truly put it behind us when life continues to be anything but normal; signage and masks and booster reminders are the new normal, and we face a new normal carrying scars of a personal nature, each and every one of us. Successive lockdowns, periods of isolation, have all affected us in different ways, and we’ve all suffered some form of trauma or psychological damage in living through conditions we’re simply not equipped for.

For many creative types, working through the experience has manifested in new artistic output. There’s something about channelling that anxiety into something, even if not direct or specific in addressing the issue, that helps to somehow minimise, contain, or otherwise manage it. Thurston Moore’s latest project, like so many was born out of a lockdown environment, and it’s an exploratory work, in so many ways. A series of instrumental guitar pieces recorded during the summer of 2020, it’s a document of, as the liner notes outline, a period where, ‘as the world confronted the pandemic shutdown and as the people of good conscious stood up against the oppression of racist police oppression and murder.’ It goes on to ask, ‘How much screen time does a parent allow a child? How much screen time does a child need to realise a world which has the means to coexist as a community in shared exchange?’

This feels like numerous issues, simultaneous but separate, have collided to inspire this album, and raises as many questions as answers. Moore is clearly placing his flag alongside Black Lives Matter, and it struck me – and surely many others – that the protests should have taken place when the world, pretty much, was in lockdown. How could this be? This was a moment in time when protest felt impossible. In fact, anything felt impossible. But the murder of George Floyd was a trigger and it marked a tipping point of something far, far bigger for so many. This was about centuries of oppression and division. The scenes aired over the news channels, globally, were electrifying. But how does this relate to monitoring the screen time parents should grant their children? Surely it’s less about the amount of time, but parental control, and the extent to which parents grant their children exposure to current affairs? That said, it’s something I’ve wrestled with myself. As a child, I had no interest in anything on the news; my own daughter, aged 10, is genuinely interested and has her views on our prime minister, our government, and the pandemic, and more. While I feel a duty to protect her from scenes of violence and endless report of rape, murder, abduction, and brutal crimes against women and children, I also feel that a certain degree of exposure to ‘the real world’ is beneficial, just as I’ve come to see that many computer games encourage problem-solving and eye-hand co-ordination. Screen time isn’t all bad if you can get over the generational differences. But.. but… no doubt, it’s a conundrum.

Screen Time offers no answers. As is often the case with instrumental works, there is little to be gleaned from them in and of themselves, and the titles offer little by way of interpretive guidance. The only thing that really struck me about the titles, in fact, is that several share their with cure songs: ‘The Walk’; ‘The Dream’. ‘The Upstairs’ feels like an allusion to ‘The Upstairs Room’ (the title of the 12” EP version of ‘The Walk’; but then again, all of the compositions are ‘the’ something: ‘The View’, ‘The Neighbour’, and these reflect the shrunken worlds we inhabited during this time: four walls, the view from the window, and the TV as the window to the world. There was nothing else but to look, and to ponder. Screen Time is a work of ponderance. It doesn’t have to be coherent, because coherent thought isn’t the state of the world right now. Show me someone who has a firm handle on everything that’s going on and I’ll show you a bullshitter. No-one knows anything, and we’re all just fumbling, stumbling through.

Many of the pieces on Screen Time are short, fragmentary, and sparse, only half-formed, but evocative and atmospheric: ‘The Walk’, a minimal piece consisting of a heavily chorused and echoed guitar trickling a cyclical motif for a minute and fifty-one seconds is exemplary. Elsewhere, ‘The Upstairs’ is a haunting piece led by disorientating, discordant piano that tumbles along.

At times reminiscent of Earth, or more specifically Dylan Carlson’s more recent solo work, Screen Time borders on ambience in its slow, soft unfurlings. The final piece, the nine-minute ‘The Realization’ is almost hypnotic; slow, with deep, resonant notes that reverberate and hover while harmonics chime and soar.

As a listening experience, Screen Time is pleasant, absorbing. I like it. But what does it say? It speaks for Thurston Moore alone, just as any such release can only speak for its composers and performers. That’s ok. When stitched together, in time, all the voices will combine to present the full picture. For now, what simply matters is that each voice keeps adding to the tapestry of documenting the present, a time unlike any other.

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Engine Kid – Special Olympics EP

Posted: 23 January 2022 in Singles and EPs
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Southern Lord – 3rd December 2021

Christopher Nosnibor

I’ve been a little slow getting around to this one, but since the band’s taken more than twenty-five years to do so, I don’t feel quite so bad.

Way, way back, before Sunn O))), before Goatsnake, before Teeth of Lions Rule the Divine (another band referencing Dylan Carlson’s mighty drone-progenitors Earth), before the advent of the Southern Lord label, Greg Anderson made noise with early 90s Seattle-based post-hardcore act Engine Kid, who signed off in 1995 with the Troubleman Unlimited EP, after undergoing countless lineup changes and recording their album Bear Catching Fish album with Steve Albini. Their short but prolific career was recently re-released as a six-album box set.

But I guess sometimes there are itches you just have to scratch, and this is clearly one such instance, with the band reconvening to revisit and rework old songs they never recorded or releases.

A lot has changed in a quarter of a century, and the title is a fair indicator. This isn’t a criticism, and as the accompanying text explains, the ‘cover art is a symbolic metaphor about living one’s best life, and with extravagant swagger. The songs themselves continue the band’s “take on the world” attitude with restless, wild energy’. This is a short blast of a release that’s about empowerment, not dissing the disabled, and it’s a reminder of simpler times, perhaps, when ‘special’ was ok. But ultimately, we’re all special, right?

The songs contained herein – several of which have already been shared here on Aural Aggravation – are blistering blasts of guitar-driven noise: fifty-nine second opener ‘Burban on Blades’ a piledriving blast of warped riffage that’s more akin to Melvins than anything else, and paves the way for the thunderous title track. The drums pound as devastating detonations, while the bass blasts at your lungs and the guitars grind with a gut-churning afterburn. It’s brutal and then some, and ‘The Abattoir’, a mere minute and fifteen in duration, is savage. One thing is clear, and that’s during their absence, they’ve not mellowed, and that they’ve not polished or prettied these songs up with a more technical performance or cleaner production is very much a good thing.

‘Patty : Tania’ (not on the flexidisc edition) marks a massive shift to round off the EP: it sounds like another band entirely, with chiming guitars weaving a dark, late-night, backstreet atmosphere that has somewhat gothic overtones, and these provide the backdrop to a lengthy sampled spoken word intro before, finally, at just shy of three and a half minutes in, the levee breaks and the guitars crash in. That kind of dynamic never gets tired, and here it shows that Engine Kid are more complex, more nuanced, and more versatile, than may initially appear.

This is a storming EP in its own right, and will likely not only elate existing fans, but introduce the band to a whole new set of listeners.

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