Kursk "The Implication" 7"
[Cal Three/Spiral Objective]
I believe this is the debut EP from this vicious Canadian act that sees three ladies teaming up with the former drummer of Head Hits Concrete to unload some dark and dissonant hardcore/punk with lots of twisted, winding riffs that are rhythmically fucked up and extremely caustic, plus lots of tempo changes. The vocals tend to stick with a searing scream, but do occasionally venture a little lower or add in some backups for variety/emphasis. "Fucked From Birth" has some of the most intriguing uses of brief melodic dissonance in the guitar parts, not to mention one of the most impressive bass performances and plenty of thundering drum fills to keep things interesting; "Iatrogenic Plague Disaster" tends to calm down a bit and finds the instruments locking up more frequently, and that's something that I'd like to hear more often in the other tracks. "Your Will; My Slaughter" even opens slowly with some fucked up interaction between the guitars and bass, almost hinting at what I could argue is a really fucked up indie rock undercurrent to some of this stuff. Very strange. The recording is pretty spacious and allows the bass to play a dead even role with the guitars, which aren't very heavily distorted at all. The intense screaming and blasting percussion can be somewhat overpowering at times, but that's due in part to the fact that the drummer's tight as fuck and the guitars are often rather loose and acerbic, whereas the basslines are all over the place but still remain a little more concrete against the percussion. I think that a heavier guitar tone would add force to the slower and more tangible breaks and help them pop out to contrast the harsher/speedier moments, but it's not a big deal. The record comes in a great looking sleeve screenprinting abstract imagery in white and metallic silver inks on textured matte black stock, with a high quality xeroxed insert inside for the lyrics and additional artwork. The lyrics are extremely strong in their use of powerful imagery and creative wording to suggest certain socio-political commentaries without being the least bit direct: "Arc and lurch beneath the soulless lights that cut through the night like razors, Abysmal sterility stretched taut rubbed raw, All the bold faced storytellers and shame faced truthtellers end up as pontificators masturbators, Graveyards full of ne'er do well no good fucking do gooders, Six feet of mental dirt, How delusional and spotless we all are." That's excellent material right there. Admittedly some of this type of stuff is a little meandering and noisy for my tastes on a musical level, but for the most part there's definitely a powerful element at work here, so this band certainly has an edge. I'll expect to be hearing a lot more about these folks down the line. (7/10)
Running time - 11:00 (approximately), Tracks: 5
[Notable tracks: Fucked From Birth, Iatrogenic Plague Disaster, Your Will; My Slaughter]
Kursk - http://kursk.n3.net

This review has been displayed 3301 times.