Extinction of Mankind "The Nightmare Seconds..." LP
[Profane Existence]
Fuck yeah. Here's the long-awaited second full-length from this classic UK crust act, one who's had a criminally low level of recorded output in their 12+ year existence. Hell, I think it's been almost 10 years since their debut LP was released! I was a huge fan of said "Baptised in Shit" LP, so I'm not sure they'll ever top that work in my book, but this record offers up 12 tracks of textbook metallic crust punk the way it was meant to be. Burly shouting vocals, thick midpaced chord progressions with a driving rhythm and just the right amount of metallic chunkiness, and so on. And I definitely like this material much more than what they did for their split CD with Misery. The songwriting is stronger and the recording is infinitely superior. A little added heaviness probably wouldn't hurt 'em since things can still sound slightly thin, but maybe they were trying to keep the thicker picking patterns from sounding too metal? I don't know, the mix is pretty solid and the tones are good, so I'm not complaining. And despite all the mentions of metal, or the fact that tracks like "Without Consent" are undeniably metal in playing style, I'm not talking metal metal or anything. There are very few note-based riffs at all, there are no solos, and the tempos only marginally venture into moderately fast sort of thrash territory (check out bits of "Apathy and Fear", which also includes a slick clean break and very brief melodic riffing - something I really miss in a lot of the contemporary crust that I come across), so it's really just the chunkiness of the guitar tone and the heavy delivery that has that metallic edge that so many UK crust acts are revered for... Amebix anyone? (Also worthy of note is that an awesome cover of said legendary act's "Arise" is present herein.) Most of the songs follow a pretty simple framework that's fairly repetitive. It can be hard to follow along with the lyrics since the vocals are pretty damn gruff, but things don't really start to drag very often. "Existence Declines" opens with a lengthy instrumental passage with a little more melody that lets the basslines have more prominence before finally diving into one of the faster chord progressions and reverting to the darker riffing later, making for one of the finest pieces herein; followed by the powerful chugging riffs of "Gung-Ho Heroes". "Empty Gestures" is probably the only track that hits on anything I'd call "groovy" with its slower rhythms and break of spoken vocals over bass and drums; but closer "Unheard Cries" takes slower speeds to a far more sinister direction layered with eerie clean guitars, so that's a far stronger angle to take. The LP comes in a matte sleeve with faintly colored artwork and a black and white insert that duplicates the cover art in grayscale and includes all of the lyrics. Truth be told I think the cover illustration looks a little goofy and immature for what this band has to offer (it's just a little crudely drawn), but I've always loved their logo design, I must say. The lyrics are pretty lengthy, not repeating as much as the vocal patterns and song structures might suggest, covering religion war, greed, abuse, etc. but the content, while overtly bleak (as always), isn't so blunt as some of this stuff can get, which is a nice change of pace. "No fault of plague or food or flame, Nature's cleansers aren't to blame, Day by day the blood rains down, In man's own greed we slowly drown..." It's also awesome that they included the lyrics for the Amebix cover, as it's very rare for cover songs to be documented in that manner. All in all this is a solid offering from this longstanding outfit. Having been slightly let down by their split with Misery I didn't want to have huge expectations, but I'm certainly not let down. Hopefully if the band continues it won't be another near-decade before another full-length sees the light, ha... (7/10)
Running time - 40:00 (approximately), Tracks: 12
[Notable tracks: Without Consent, Arise, Existence Declines, Unheard Cries]
Profane Existence - http://www.profaneexistence.com

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