Let’s be brutally, Emperor’s-new-clothes honest here: theoretically, crustpunk fans should be the easiest to please. An avalanche of drums, guitars that sound like a toaster thrown into an acid bath, some Crass-inspired artwork and – boom – appetites are sated. Vocals? That drunk guy who usually directs traffic with his shoe will do.
Featuring members of Schifosi and Pisschrist, Krömosom tick all the Amebix/ENT-inspired crust boxes with aplomb. On Are You Free? they writhe like a legion of hogs being lead to an abattoir, Fallout sees Krömosom create a holocaust of the inner ear and on Chaos Night, the bare skeleton of a song even makes a fleeting appearance.
There’s something quaint about hearing a band so in love with a genre fixed in another era that you half expect to hear rants against the ills of Thatcher, nuclear armament and Wham! Nevertheless, sonically this album fucking reeks. You can actually smell it coming out your speakers, melting your shitty Ikea units down into puddles and then killing your houseplants.
