Artimus Pyle
Civil Dead
Prank
Kicking off with some of the most hauntingly tense feedback to even begin a record • mainly, •cause you just know you•re about to be flattened by a Mack-sized wallop • Artimus Pyle•s Civil Dead never once lets up from start to bloody finish, the California trio destroying decibels, and presumably, their instruments in the process. At 13 songs in 23 minutes, Artimus Pyle create a rusty trainwreck of a sound on Civil Dead, recalling prime His Hero is Gone and such latter-day Canadian crust-metal luminaries as One Eyed God Prophecy, (Union of) Uranus, and Ire. Absolutely smothering, yeah, but that•s precisely the whole point. However, not all is necessarily cagey and chaotic on the album, for Artimus Pyle shun trite blastbeats in favor of those moshaholic quick-step tempos that earmark most modern hardcore; plus, they also wisely mix things up with amphetaminized sludge crawls, much like His Hero is Gone are wont to do, that remain just as smothering (best examples: •Rape The Beast,• •Closed Casket,• and the title track). Best part of it all, though, is that when one attack on humanity ends, another one begins with so little as a blink of a battered eyelash, the whole overwhelmingly visceral onslaught leveling cynicism and disgust for society•s unjust ills at every (crooked) turn, the suitably out-of-breath vocal roars being the central mouthpiece for such. Beware, and be very afraid.
Prank, PO Box 410892, San Francisco, CA 94141-0892
