Distressor – “Distressor”
I recently had the pleasure of seeing Distressor play at a show at The Firehouse in Providence. I felt they set the house on fire (or at least the roof.)
They played a set of heavy, hard hitting stuff. And when I mentioned to my heavy hardcore loving buddy, Mike, that I thought they were more metal than hardcore, he agreed. But more importantly, when I said I really like them he agreed, emphatically.
The tags on their bandcamp say “punk hardcore metal Lynn.” And I think, that just being from Lynn, makes them hardcore no matter what type of music they play. You see- it’s a town with a tough reputation.
And this is a band full of rough and tough songs led by a diminutive female singer named Susie Layhe, who barks out death metal like vocals so full of fire they’ll scorch your soul.
And her band throws humongous slabs of molten sounds that are dropped upon our ears from a high spot. Live, they sounded mucho metal. On this Ep the hardcore comes out just a little more.
But wherever you decide to place them they’ve found a nice niche between metal and hardcore, throttling our eardrums within an inch of their lives. This is aggressive music that punches and pummels with power and passion along with thunderous beats. That knock you senseless, all the while egging you to get up from the mat.
Let’s pull away the ropes to enter the ring and listen, shall we?
“Cruise Control” erupts with venom and a solid, energetic beat with guitars wielding decimating sounds, hitting us right between the eyes. Knocking us into a shell shocked, blind, euphoric glee. The vocals growl and threaten us with harm until the rhythm is reigned in into a dark, heavy beat. All the while the anger and disgust and chugging, minor key chords lead us ahead. This is a song that takes you to where you want to be whether you were aware of it or not.
“World Collapse” explodes with vocals pressed against your face, guitars aiming to drawn and quarter your entrails and a beat that wants to pummel your solar plexus and mind to dust. When the beat heats up and the mosh-pit explodes in front of your eyes- all tales of caution are thrown to the wind as an intense rush of anger and passion provoke a volcanic apparition of release. Only then to be squelched by the jackhammer punishment being dealt out to you in an onslaught of aural abuse. But only pure smiles arise from this, as a song that is this great, will make all the pain worthwhile.
With some adept drum work leading in “Devil’s Hand” only to be met by heavy, riffing, sludge-y guitar- the intense, growling vocals appear along with a great, hard, headbanging beat. But soon we’re thrust into a faster, thrash metal part with the vocals spitting bile n our face while the rhythm section, like an insane Ferris Wheel, revolves energy in an evolving span. Soon we return to another drum intro and sludge-y chords leading the song to a quick end. This song is a powerful, pulverizing potent tune packed with murderous, menacing malevolence and is my favorite song on this EP.
“H.N.S,” starts at a moderate pace with deadly, ominous riffs criss-crossing against each other. Then this song proceeds into a nice, headbanging groove. But while I’m twirling my non-existent locks the rhythm gangs up with the vocals, enticing us forward but only ending back with the original groove. The riffs criss-cross again but can’t knock this song of its’ axis. This song is hard, strong, intense and true, potent and pure, fierce and ferocious with a great groovin’ beat.
A distressor is some kind of product- one that “is so versatile it can do fast, slow, obvious, invisible compression with or without distortion modes…a wonderful piece of gear.”
I don’t know all about that. Maybe this high-tech, high falutin’ mumbo jumbo rings true with someone like Andy Bang- but for me I’m as lost as a fish out of water, a bird without a sky, a punk without a beer bottle…
But I do know that distress means to upset and that I can see. I can see this band making society and complacent music fans uneasy. This is music that is hard, pure, raw and true and wallops you with a hard dose of metal/hardcore that may cause your sinuses to clear or your hemorrhoids to bleed- but who’s to tell? We don’t always get to choose the way life leads us.
At the end of “Manic Depression” by Jimi Hendrix, while the music decompresses and decomposes, like a factory or machine shutting down and grinding to a halt- Jimi whispers, “Depress…”
I’m gonna make believe he says “Distress…or” from now on.
I think he would approve.
(Slimedog)
