There’s a time to listen to wafty shit, you know the stuff… something symphonic, something with keyboards, windy forest sound effects and probably a warbly singer whining on about whatever issue they’ve taken up on someone else’s behalf that day. Articles on these bands usually contain the terms ‘progressive’ or ‘post (insert genre of choice)’ and the members are usually hipster plums with trust funds, tight jeans, shit physiques and ‘complicated hair’…. there’s a time to listen to that…. not sure when…. but I’m assured there is.
There are times of course when you just want to listen to something that rips your face right fucking off, makes you want to smash up the house and disembowel the snowflake in the ‘TapOut’ shirt doing curls in the squat rack. (That last bit probably only applies to me).
If you prefer the somewhat more bludgeoning end of the metal spectrum then This Is Endless are your band of choice then for face shredding, aggro inducing, hairdryer in the face death metal! These London devils have put out a six track EP that’s so aggressive, so hard that if it were a baseball bat it’d make Negan’s Lucille look like one of Ken Dodds tickling sticks!
Not since Dripback released the ‘Inhaling The Ashes’ EP in 2011 has a British band unleashed such a throat punch of a record. Which is no surprised seeing as one of the driving forces in Dripback is grinding out the riffs here too. Plus this EP is also recorded & produced by Russ Russell whose patented ‘shovel to the face’ mastering & production has turned the brutality dial to 11 for bands such as Brujeria, Insidious Disease, Lock Up, Napalm Death and er…. Evil Scarecrow to name but a few.
The band themselves are somewhat ‘shady’ but this conglomerate of urchins contains members / former members of Akercocke, Voices, Meta-Stasis, Dead Beyond Buried, Ted Maul and the aforementioned Dripback. Drenched with credibility then and this pedigree is monstrously apparent on every track from album opener ‘Soul Negated’ with its ‘Cannibal Corpse with added groove’ feel to the 6m36s finale of ‘Forgive Me Father’ which is as epic as you get in this style of music. The title track has a sinister hardcore vibe to it and the swagger of ‘Turning Into Sand’ and ‘Snakes’ is how I would imagine The Rotted would sound if they hadn’t hung up their boots two years ago. The layered, savage vocals are fantastic (especially in ‘Snakes’) and the drums are like an incredibly precise artillery barrage! The riffs are churned out by the sack load and the guitar work here is 100% on point with not a note wasted.
A brilliant debut EP from This Is Endless a band that deserves to go on to bigger & nastier things. 100% recommended.
(9/10 Mark Eve)
Leave a Reply