I was embarrassed to listen to the Cure. I could see what my friends who listened to Metallica or The Sex Pistols were talking about. It was sad bastard music to such an extreme it was hard to even look past the set up and hear what was going on instrumentally. Industrial came around and didn't fare much better. It sounded tougher at least but the drum machines were a hard sell even at machine gun bpm. Psychic Teens seem to have taken the gap between the post punk goth of something like Bauhaus and the noise rock found on that other reptile based record label and come out the other side with something respectable to all above parties.
A-Side's "Face" opens on a sustained group of notes and back and forth tom rhythm that explodes into thick layered Health sounding super noise before cutting out back down with creepy alley vocals reminding me of Lux but with a massive amount of power and volume behind him. It's an epic, dark sound that has roots in feedback noise and layered garage stuff more than the Cramps style B-movie set though. Just when you think this is a hardcore guitar based Blessure Grave it turns into a creepier underground Slug Guts. The wall they create gets bigger, their dark density imploding out, the reel to reel coming to a stop. Impressive and huge, about time punk and sad bastards got together.
B-Side's "All" is a slower picked track moving in that traditional Bauhaus direction if they were into that infinite sliding chorus sustain. Caught fighting the deep sludge they can hardly pick up one foot after the other sounding like Film School or Band of Horses referencing their own touchstones in the right ways. The melody starts to loop and toms build only to suddenly fade out. An unexpected follow up to the weight of the A-Side. They take a step back and get introspective but they know what you wanted to hear all along.
Get this (japanese import?) on dark green vinyl from Reptilian Records direct.
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