This quartet from Austin Texas caught my attention with last album Endless Computer on Nuclear War Now in 2017. They had a mutoid, squat-Atompunk sound that twisted and turned all over the place and was quite a weird sounding trip out into the irradiated wastelands after man had been destroyed by the technology he had created. Well that’s how I looked at it but perhaps I was on a Terminator trip after having my head spun listening to them. Now Swirly, Keymaster, Guzzler and General Ham are back with album number two Neuropunk Boostergang on Profound Lore Records.
Despite the album title I didn’t on the whole find this quite as “punk” as the last album but more a case of some strange amalgamation of futuristic noise rock. The vocals are strange and alien and the music clangs and clamours around them forming shapes and taking you on a weird journey to a world ravaged and in flames. The titles of the songs are odd enough ‘Wretched Warez’, ‘Hyper-Flesh Aedificium’ and ‘Rejunkulizer’ among them and what with the artwork this unfolds like a very compulsive serial unveiled episodically by counter-culture comic 2000AD. Alien and hybrid to us in some ways but very much of the earth, it gives you a right old Future Shock in the process.
That noise rock idea never leaves and this has me searching to see if Jim Plotkin is involved in any way as it really does have his sort of stamp all over it as well as the sort of sonic rhythmic thrust instrumentally forged out by Dutch noiseniks Kong. A bit of research shows that it is actually Kurt Ballou that engineered and mixed this and Joel Grind behind the mastering so things do make a little sense as we race through the slightly more frantic Waste Ranger who is no doubt on the look out for garbage to turn into a radioactive power source. Tracks are generally 3-5 minutes and hurtle through a myriad of meandering melodies never leaving you knowing quite where they are going to take you next. If you staggered in from the dust storm into a futuristic bar looking for liquor and to trade your cursed earth warez with fellow survivors Hardware style this would be the band you would be battling with to shout and bargain above. The manic likes of Cryptosteal the currency dealt as these 22nd century schizoid men abrasively leave you deaf and sprawled in an alcoholic stupor by the bass bin. Who knows perhaps by then live performances will be allowed again; we are looking into the future!
Where Expander fit in is uncertain, the punk and noise rock tags are certainly valid but the band are somewhere between worlds here. Take a flask, gather up a bit of Voivod, the aforementioned Kong, Old Lady Drivers, perhaps a dash of Genghis Tron and even a bit of oddballs such as The Residents and give it a good shake and see what leaks out the bottom. A couple of what sounds like some long forgotten 80’s Troma sci-fi picture interludes also seep out between a couple of the tracks to keep you on your toes and try and identify just where they have come from and this does a good job keeping you entertained in the process. As the title track lurches and the vocals are heaved up and chewed over one thing is certain, this is not music for the Norms but one for the freaks to come out their shelters and party to. ‘Obsoletor’ sees the party hitting critical mass as it hurtles away in a speedy 3 manic mins and the pitch hits critical mass at finale with ‘C.O.III: Quest for a Future’ leaving you more than a little dizzy wondering just what disaster planet earth has in store for us next.
(7.5/10 Pete Woods)
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