The Endless Blockade "Turn Illness Into a Weapon" CD
[Sound Pollution]
Be not misled by the first minute-and-a-half of slow 'n' sludgy grit of dirty bass and feedback that opens this disc, as the remaining 18 minutes sees this Canadian act plowing through a generally fast dose of hardcore/punk that hits on some grinding blasts and a certain power violence sensibility that isn't as common as it used to be. Think bitter, strained high-pitched lead screams trading off with occasional lower-midrange barking over music that shifts from straight up frantic speeds and quirky power chord arrangements to plenty of slower and more pounding tempos that flirt with some of the grimy sludge heard in the opening moments (just check out the surging slow break in "Death Ritual"). Elsewhere, "Bleak Outlook" is among the "longer" tracks (i.e. those that near the two-minute mark) and remains slow and pulsing prior to its one quick blast at the end; "Timebomb" perfectly contrast's the band's two sides without losing any focus or intensity, and that's the kind of thing I'd like to see them nail more often; "The Endless Blockade" is a mere four seconds; and after a couple of false endings, "Mothra" closes the disc with a bleak three-minute instrumental passage complete with amazing discordant guitar lines over more of the drawn out feedback and blazing drum fills that really let the drummer show off a bit. The recording's fine by me. I'd probably like to hear the higher vocals fall closer in with the instruments, and they could stand to thicken things up a little more to maximize the force of their slower moments, but for the most part everything is clear and pretty well balanced. So... aside from a little bit of a gap in the mix that could stand for beefing up, they've done quite well. I dig the messy look of the artwork though the overall color scheme and such isn't all that interesting to me, and I could kind of say the same thing about the lyrics here. A good deal of the content's not that bad, and they often have no quarrels with making the messages (which I can appreciate) blunt, but sometimes that straightforward approach can be a little uninteresting in the grand scheme of things: "Quarter of the world's prison population is incarcerated in America, Inmates work in call centers for a dollar a day, Private corporations charge inmates their board, There's economic logic in criminalizing victimless choices, There is a vested interest in keeping people incarcerated." I've never particularly been wild on the "power violence" kind of thing, so there are some aspects of these guys' approach that don't do but so much for me (read: I think they'd be better off as a doomy sludge band), but they're tight players and have more diversity than average working in their favor, so I can indeed appreciate much of what's going on here. Those who feel that a certain niche of hardcore/punk along these lines hasn't been well filled since the mid- to late-90's ought to be pretty fond of this record, however. There's definitely some cool shit here. (6/10)
Running time - 19:20, Tracks: 15
[Notable tracks: Death Ritual, Bleak Outlook, Timebomb, Mothra]
Sound Pollution - http://www.sound-pollution.com

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