Scalped does away with the social niceties that have plagued extreme punk and metal for far too long: why dress a sick breakdown with anything at all? These naked odes to the churning pinnacles of Infest and Crossed Out songs focus on not burying the most furious and knuckle-dragging songwriting elements: no intros, no chorus, no bridge, no solo. Just the parts where your more tasteful, aware encephalic functions are drowned in a desperate injection of adrenaline. Scalped reminds us that there is literally nothing worth venerating and refining after all these years of recycled nostalgias than those golden moments of true release.
Cogs and Sprockets are one of these bands that make me so angry they are so good. I imagine whatever malcontent behind this hateful object of fascination to be, in fact, made of a drum kit. That would better suit my description of the drumming on this tape to be the sound of some organism flexing its percussive muscles before a beating so precise and well-delivered that it practically demands its victim choke out a thanks before they expire. This release expands on its brilliant predecessor (the "Black Friday" cassette was made to shame and humiliate you) by bringing Cogs and Sprockets guttural growls into a powerviolence-y bark as the tape progresses. With a band this good, this is essentially adding a new wing onto the compound of drugged out followers.
A stellar release, available here for $4.00 if there are any left.
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