Turn it up to 11
Admiral Angry don’t mess about, this is punishing listening; so heavy it’s heady and totally all encompassing, bringing your arms out in goose-bumps and forcing you to pay attention, or else. From the start of ‘Sex With A Stranger’ this is a vast slice of dirty metal; the low, low, low, slow and nasty sludgy bass throbs in your head in insistent looping and sometimes groove drenched waves, the drums play around this, churning up a second wave of noise until suddenly, on ‘Android’, they branch out into a solo of solid, effortless meandering, pulling everything back together, riding above all this, the fantastic vocals are always just on the edge of breaking into hysteria; frantic, angry and desperately screaming, without respite.
“Buster” is low and slow sludge for the most part, think Will Haven heavy, and doesn’t have one dodgy moment or duff track; with tunes like the stunning ‘Bug Vomit’ on which the vocals are even more desperate and emotive than usual there is a dark and unexpected fuzzy melody which sneaks in and out keeping things interesting, you know you’re on to something good.
The whole album has a brilliant hypnotic bass sound underlying everything and sometimes tracks break into moments of carefree, furiously fast thrash that shocks you out of your groove like a hit and run, ‘Specimen On’ is one of those with a sudden, slamming rhythm change and shows this band have more up their sleeves than you might have thought at a glance. The same is true of the rest of the record; the more you listen the more you find; odd little noises and quirky rhythms start to jump out at you.
Admiral Angry’s decision to release their debut album following the tragic death of their guitarist Daniel Kraus must have been a difficult one and whether the band will follow on from this release remains to be seen, but this is a great record to be remembered by.