Disable

Reviews

Disable / Löckheed split EP

Who wants blistering D-beat kängpunk for disfukker? DISABLE kicks things off with grueling, distorted, mid-tempo hardcore punk. A classic style with slightly reverberated vocals à la GLORIOUS?, DISCLOSE, et al. Pace quickens and riffs thicken by the second track, a snare-pummeling composition called “Enola.” The bass here is a ghost-ridden chopper cycle of fire and mayhem. An awesome three tracks from DISABLE, who switch it up subtly and keep you mesmerized in raw, chainsawing fury for six solid and distortion pedal-immersed minutes. LÖCKHEED follows suit with a slightly more Vevarsle/Scandi-beat style, with the feeling of DISCARD, WARCOLLAPSE, or DISFEAR. Vocals are harsher, solos are higher and more dive-bombing. This heavy madness is the perfect compliment to Side A. I want to describe track two on their side as well, as things really climax with “Pill Mill.” Both sides share a parabolic structure but bring a unique offering of this classic style. The last track “Black Wings of War” takes the register even eerier, ending the entire EP with unsettling ominous death-beat. Mastered with the finely-tuned ear-slaughtering of Jack Control at Enormous Door. Strongly recommended for this gross world/your life.

Disable …Slamming in the Depths of Hell EP

Damn—a solid decade of disbeat noise from Atlanta’s DISABLE? I welcome it just like I welcome these six bursts of manic distortion into my life. It would be easy to keep cranking out amped-up, mindless D-beat distortion (and I wouldn’t mind), but DISABLE pays attention to the little things: the bit of weird chaotic melody before the stop in the title track, the start/stop that opens “False Flag,” turning “Death’s Head” into slow-motion robotic repetition instead of making it the mandatory mid-tempo stomp that every D-beat record seems to have. The closer, “Whistling Death,” is interrupted by noise, but it sounds like it was actually interrupted instead of some calculated electronics-not-music exercise to prove they aren’t just a run of the mill D-beat band. All of this is to say that DISABLE are, in fact, another D-beat band, but that they’ve used their ten years (and counting) in the game to create something different (and dare I say “interesting”) within the confines of the genre. Killer slab.