The Locust haven’t released a new album for a few years now (the last was 2007s New Erections) so the best we have nowadays is this compilation, comprising 44 bursts of avant-garde wailing, taken from a whole heap of out-of-print and hard-to-find material.
People used to the Locust’s shtick will feel right at home, and anyone who got a kick out of earlier Daughters’ works like Canada Songs will find a lot to admire in the off-kilter shrieking and straight-to-the-point battering. It’s hard to pick a high point on the record, but a comically vicious version of Queen’s Flash springs immediately to mind, lasting all of 57 seconds. Freddie definitely would have liked it.
The band’s predilection for daft song titles, atmospheric keyboard plonking and even dafter stories (Priest With The Sexually Transmitted Diseases Get Out Of My Bed is a high point) further solidifies their (arguable) position as the grindcore/powerviolence equivalent of The Residents.
