These Portland lunatics are back, throwing down a complete fucking wall of total noise with female shouting fighting through to be heard. Literally. It's just a wall of complete distortion with slightly audible blasting drums, throbbing bass that's not that easy to discern, piercing feedback, and when a lead break kicks in? Absolute searing pain. I do like the vocals and the vocal patterns, though... total rage. There's no use in even talking about the recording, this is the rawest and most distorted punk record I've ever heard. Tracks like "Buried by the Dead" drop the intensity of the distortion back and let the bass drive, but it's all raw and distorted as fuck regardless. In songs like "Vampires" they somehow manage to keep a certain tangibility intact that puts forth a sense of energy that I really enjoy, but some of the other pieces are almost straight noise. The record comes in a black and white sleeve with a black and white insert, all done in high contrast artwork with handwritten text. The visual aesthetic here is not as strong as I'd like to see knowing where some of the band members come from, but it still works. Lyrically the songs aren't the norm, they attack the media and such topics, but the writing is a lot different. "A shut down between synapses, Chemical imbalance sends you into relapses, The latest innovation in psychiatric fashion, If we're lucky, the lobotomy will come back next season..." This is about on par with their demo as far as being a bit less than what I had hoped, but the band is insane and over the top, and I'm interested in what they do, so I can appreciate it, even if I would like to hear them tone it down a bit on the abrasiveness. I'm sure I'll pick up whatever it is that they do in the future out of curiosity alone.
[Wicked Witch]
Running time - 7:00 (approximately), Tracks: 5
[Notable tracks: Vampires, Buried by the Dead]
Lebenden Toten, P.O. Box 40113, Portland City, Oregon 97240 -
