Reviews

SuperFi

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.

Hozomeen The Void LP

There’s an identifiable type of noise rock that sounds, above all else, weary: beaten down by life, just about keeping its exasperation from boiling over. That doesn’t really read like a compliment, but it’s intended as one, certainly in this case. HOZOMEEN, a one-man project from northeast England, has this sound locked down. At its most effervescent, it sounds like the JESUS LIZARD after they got big but before they signed to a major label; elsewhere, the riffs are similarly big and hulking, but slower, like when you drag your own sagging carcass out to face the day. Not doom metal or slowcore, but on speaking terms with those things, and “One Kilohertz” is on an unmistakable MELVINS tip. There are some guest trumpet parts and unorthodox, maybe even dub-influenced production touches if you listen carefully. Graham Thompson, who is HOZOMEEN, has been in a solid list of bands over twenty-something years (thrashcore in JINN and NEUROSIS-via-hardcore in GRACE are the two I’m most familiar with) and has hit on something really neat here.

Art of Burning Water / Stuntman Split EP

France’s STUNTMAN bring us some pummeling metallic grind. This is a band that can do the hair-pulling sludge agony just as well as they do the machine gun maelstrom. Grindcore forever! The UK’s ART OF BURNING WATER throw down a little bit of proper powerviolence—maybe too little. My issue with their side is that the first and longer song is OK, but it’s more like a buildup / intro song. Then the second song is fucking sick as shit, but it’s only like twenty seconds long, and that’s the end of the record. It’s like, dude, you gotta save that intro song for the LP. That being said, it’s still a pretty cool listen.