Salt Lake City’s GAZA operate in a world of their own, one where contemporaries are few and far between (I’m thinking KNUT and KEELHAUL and then I’m not thinking anymore because my brain is annihilated mentioning all those bands in one sentence), and here on their third full-length (first two both great also, well worth checking out), they take things to an even larger level of intensity, thanks to an absolutely crushing Kurt Ballou production sound. The title track is a slow sludge mantra, while songs like ‘The Truth Weighs Nothing’ deliver the band’s labyrinthine, technical and off-kilter grind/hardcore/sludge with a wild abandon. Album highlight ‘When They Beg’ shows the band’s more pensive, melodic and apocalyptic side, but still with the musical quirks and confusion that every tune has. The bass tones on ‘Skull Trophy’ alone make this one an interesting anomaly in sheer heaviness and intensity. ‘Routine And Then Death’ ends off the album perfectly: it’s an intensely slow sludge epic sure to harsh anyone who has any mellow left after sitting through this thoroughly devastating album, which shows off all that is good about modern, extreme music.
Content 2012 Brave Words & Bloody Knuckles
Design and Programming 2012 Grafang
