Opinions – Human Zoo – BLABBERMOUTH.NET

We stay in an period that’s completely designed for hardcore punk. STRESS POSITIONS can lay declare to being one of the ferociously livid-sounding bands on the planet proper now: a mirrored image of the truth that there’s a lot to be indignant about, but additionally a obligatory high quality for any band desirous to blow away these jaded cobwebs. As showcased on final 12 months’s cruel “Harsh Actuality” full-length, these Windy Metropolis militants make punk rock that’s constructed fully from boiling adrenalin, scorched rubber and damaged tooth. STRESS POSITIONS play at lightning velocity, with vocalist Stephanie Brooks browsing excessive of the chaos, throat set to a everlasting, incandescent screech. Songs typically final barely greater than a minute, however even the longer tunes really feel like sneak assaults. In consequence, “Human Zoo” appears to be the perfect platform for the band. A seven-track EP, with three further remixes, it lasts for 23 gloriously unhinged, punk-as-fuck minutes.

When STRESS POSITIONS take off, they take off with most venom. “Sadistic” is a monstrous opener: two minutes of impossibly paced, evil hardcore, with Brooks‘s piercing roar including additional layers of urgency. It’s absurdly thrilling, blastbeats and all. “Fragile” follows and by some means manages to be much more excessive. It lurches, it hammers, it grinds. The title monitor is subsequent, indicating a stylistic sidestep into harrowing anarcho-punk territory. Infernally catchy regardless of its brutality, “Human Zoo” borrows obliquely from DEAD KENNEDYS, raging with the identical crackpot rock ‘n’ roll depth and hurling eerie, angular surf guitar strains into the squall. “Nakba” returns to the all-out struggle strategy, noise rock grotesqueries underpinning one other breakneck dash; the accelerator is floored once more for the totally psychotic “Blood Cash”, earlier than sinister deathrock riffs are drawn into the melee; and “Salbahe Ako” is turbocharged metal-punk spewed out at a number of, jarring speeds and sealed with one other bizarre, wired guitar solo. The closing “Kaddish” eschews punk rock in favor of a disorientating collage of sampled noise, religious chants and disembodied dialogue, like psychedelic ambient propaganda from the guts of humanity.

“Human Zoo” would nonetheless be a pleasure with out the three remixes that carry up the rear, however there’s something bewitching concerning the distinction on show. Arriving in spite of everything that fireplace and fury, digital dismantlings of “Blood Cash” and the title monitor might simply sound like an irrelevant tag-on, however STRESS POSITIONS rabid id is lovingly protected by each electro-punk oddballs PLANET B and mysterious techno-crat MADE BY HUMAN HANDS. From jolting, industrial hip-hop beats to wildly oscillating, blank-eyed electro grooves, all three snatch parts of the unique tracks and repurpose them as a part of a brand new, tech-tormented jigsaw. “Human Zoo” is fiercely unique, however primarily simply fierce.