Retox
Ugly Animals

THE REVIEW

Pain changes depending on what causes it. If The Locust were (are?) a crazed razor, launched at the speed of light, Retox are evil incarnate in a time bomb placed on a car of pure rust hurtling down a shattered highway flanking cities devastated by modernity and Western thought. At the wheel, Justin Pearson and Gabe Serbian. And it's frightening to find oneself in the middle of the road.

"The World Is Ending And It's About Time" is the alarm siren, the warning, an explosive start, instruments and voice launch madly in broken times and vehement cries, repetitiveness becoming, at some point despair, phrases endlessly repeated, an obstinacy of pain, and an inhuman scream of pain to complete the circuit. On a circular riff unfolds the hardcore of "Thirty Cents Shy Of A Quarter", voice cries out in a "chant" in simple old school style, "pulp" inserts, and towards the end, the guitar kicks off with a textbook post-hardcore chorus. The highly fragmented "Cement Sucking" would fit well on a Converge album, it's alienating, the inability to catch one's breath to which Justin subjects himself, time rights itself and it's a thrash heroin hit. "Boredom Is Counter-Revolutionary" is a micro-suite, it unfolds in 4 tempos: deafening synthetic noise/hallucinogenic mid-tempo/blast beat fusillade/uncontrolled thrash despair, all in less than 2 minutes. "Piss Elegant" closes the door where the specter of the Black Flag merges with cement guitars, words spat in your face, and a guitar solo that synthesizes, transforms, and relaunches the assault.

Blood is the salt of life. And Retox know it very well.