Powerviolence without the cringing
L. Saulsbury | Portland, OR USA | 07/29/2008
(4 out of 5 stars)
"For the past 2 years I've been veering away from my formerly mainstream tastes and into the more exotic sounds of grindcore, doom, death, etc. One genre in the heavy-underground that I've always shied away from, however, is powerviolence. On paper it's always sounded great to me: wild tempo changes, blast beats, and the occasional bit of noise. what has always killed the experience for me is the constant presence of "dog vocals" (think Man is the Bastard if you're unsure of what I'm talking about here). For those who, like myself, might reconsider purchasing an album that's been labeled as powerviolence for this reason, fear not.
While dog vocals make a few appearances here, they're not of the cringe-inducing variety that I'm used to, but rather the perfect blend of wild battle cry and village idiot. Most everything else on this album reaches the same degree of perfection: Classic riffs, great stampeding blast beats, and some of the better slowed-down sections I've heard from a band that isn't explicitly doom.
My only complaint here is the throwaway noise track and the extended noise outro (kudos for being the only noise section that has ever actually hurt my ears though)."