Atomçk Towering Failures LP
From, at this point in their evolution, a haphazard combination of Bristol, south Wales, and Leeds, ATOMÇK is described by someone (possibly themselves?) as “UK grindcore veterans.” Sounds kinda funny, but thinking about it, they’ve been hard on it since 2006 or so without a lot of pauses, and few UK bands have actually played grindcore for that long. I would call Towering Failures their fourth album proper, depending on how you go about formatting things, and it’s a most energetic crusher that, rhythmically speaking, gets in ample wriggling and twisting while it’s blasting. “Brain Rot,” the LP’s first song, sounds weirdly hardcore—like post-VOID type hardcore—if you ignore the textbook grind snare sound and inhuman screeching vocals, at least. Thereafter, eighteen more portions of buckwild tempo-pushing, sludgy dropouts, guitar parts with justifiable prog ambitions (like the clean metallic bits on “Fives,” the last track on the album) and song titles which range from grind scene-themed punning to ersatz NAPALM DEATH to Welsh slang for being pissed-off.