Here's some heavy hardcore/punk with a little bit of a Discharge thing happening. The vocals are mainly gruff shouts with some backups as well, but the music is a little bit darker and more diverse than most bands of this style. They really don't get overly generic with their influences. For the most part things vary from moderately paced to fast with a few brutal breaks. They definitely have that plodding Scandinavian D-beat sort of thing going on, but there's much more than that. I like the tempo variation and the dissonance... it's actually sort of hard to explain their spin on the genre. They do end with a great cover of Raw Power's "Fuck Authority", though. I love the recording. It's very raw but the bass totally carries the mix, and that fucking kills! A fairly tight mix surrounds the thick, massive bass tone so that things are slightly noisy but there are no gaps. My only gripe is that I wish the drums were mixed deeper in like the vocals are. The lyrics are blatantly socio-political and almost every track viciously attacks religion and the marriage of church and state. "Divide church from state, both devour and deplete. The broken dreams of humanity, this is their salvation..." The only setback to an otherwise nice record is that the visual aesthetic sucks. The logo is a crappy attempt at ripping off the already overused Discharge lettering, the cover illustration is lame (What the fuck is that exactly?), the fonts are pixilated, they've failed to achieve the "cut and paste" look that they seem to have been going for, etc. The sleeve folds out to reveal a large collage that's not nearly as bad, but it still lacks the feel that I think they were probably trying to achieve. I'm also not at all fond of the lackluster band name or the repetition of concepts within the lyrics. However, musically this is great, and I'd be very curious to see where they go down the road.
[Get the Axe]
Running time - 10:00 (approximately), Tracks: 6
[Notable tracks: Grind the Faces, Programmed Lives, Fuck Authority]
Get the Axe Records - http://www.gettheaxerecords.com
