Whereas British noise rock has always tended to exude a ‘dropping acid and then going to stare at the fruit machine in a Wetherspoons’ kind of unsettling weirdness, its Atlantic cousin has largely tended to err on the more conservative and hardcore-leaning side.
Yet this isn’t to say there aren’t some true gems to be found, as anyone who picked up Unsane’s recent LP, Wreck, will attest. Towards the top of the pile is undoubtedly New Jersey’s Fight Amp (or Fight Amputation prior to their 2008 debut Hungry For Nothing).
Although having slimmed down to a three-piece since their last LP, 2009’s Manners And Praise, none of their raw acerbity has been lost. Their driving bludgeon of riffs owes as much to the gritty hardcore approach of Unsane as it does to the gluey thunder of The Melvins, as is evident on Creepy Kids. And, as proved by following track Should’ve Worn Black, they’re more than capable of stomping out Harvey Milk-tainted, unsettling mid-paced lurches when they want to as well.
