CRUCIAL BLAST REVIEW

As of this moment, writing this blurb about their new album Mutt, Texas rippers Total Abuse are my favorite hardcore band. I was gushing over their self-titled debut that came out a while back on Deranged after getting totally enamored with their atavistic throwback to circa-1984 thrash, their infatuation with the writings of Peter Sotos, and the stark black and white visuals on their album and 7" sleeves that referenced both the primitive apocalyptic collage art of early American hardcore and the blunt monochrome look of old British industrial cassettes. Seemed like it was custom tailored to my taste in hardcore, a negatory, nihilistic blast of primitivist fury that feels dead serious, driven by murderous desire and staring at the world with an unblinking eye. Not to mention a fiercely noisy edge that felt like I was hearing some as-yet undiscovered psychotic hardcore band from the 80's being blasted out of shredded speakers and malfunctioning PA equipment.
Their last album and the Sex Pig 7" (the title of which is another direct Sotos reference) are still highly recommended to fans of psycho HC and get constant play around here, but their latest Lp Mutt just fucking blew me through the door. On the surface, the album is a direct continuation of the debut. The songs are once again short, brutal blasts of ancient hardcore played with maximum venom and power. The music and everything within it feels as if it's slathered in feedback, as if the band is hurling themselves against a wall of busted, squealing amplifiers. Songs like "Eunuch", "Fluid Exchange", "Buried", and "Caligula" mostly blast out brutal speed attacks somewhere in between Void and Negative Approach, infested with screaming high-end amp howl. Then the band shifts into a staggering dirge that stops the album dead in it's tracks, like when they stumble into the spastic noise and damaged Flipper/Kilslug-esque sludge of "Secret Passage I" and "Pure". There's nothing anthemic in the vocals; the singer delivers his hungry, desperate howl into the storm, his desperation syncing with the band into a wave of droning power. The apex of the album is the complete collapse into noise that comes with "Secret Passage II", a savage wall of guitar squall, squealing agonized feedback, and avalanche drum clatter. The aesthetics of Broken Flag applied to brutal, stripped down American hardcore.
The b&w fanzine style booklet that comes with the Lp features the lyrics, an integral part of Total Abuse's art. The lyrics are obviously influenced by Sotos's writings, the clipped, blunt, brutal lyrics expressing themes of total control, nihilism, loathing, oppression, depravity, violence and desire, directly and without glamour. It's an exploration of hunger that has more in common with Dom Fernow's work in Prurient than anything going on right now in hardcore.
Highest recommendation

PRISON SWEAT

LYON FRANCE

012 - Total Abuse from christophe bernard on Vimeo.

second song is a cover of Dick's - Saturday Night at the Bookstore

the whole thing was fucked

Total Abuse in Lublin from elizabeth skadden on Vimeo.

Total Abuse European Tour 2010

Sa. 22.05.2010 Leipzig - Zoro Germany
So. 23.05.2010 Mannheim - Pfingstfest Germany
Mo. 24.05.2010 Nuremberg - Kunstverein Germany
Di. 25.05.2010 Munich - Kafe Kult Germany
Mi. 26.05.2010 Vienna - Tüwi Austria
Do. 27.05.2010 Bologna - Atlantide Italy
Fr. 28.05.2010 Milano - Dauntaun Italy
Sa. 29.05.2010 Lyon - The Grrrrnd Zero France
So. 30.05.2010 Barcelona - Rock Sound Spain
Mo. 31.05.2010 Zarautz - Gaztetxe France
Di. 01.06.2010 Toulouse - Les Pavillons Sauvages France
Mi. 02.06.2010 Paris - La Miroiterie France
Do. 03.06.2010 Kortrijk - The Pits Belgium
Fr. 04.06.2010 Amsterdam - Occii Netherlands
Sa. 05.06.2010 London - tba Uk
So. 06.06.2010 Newcastle - tba UK
Mo. 07.06.2010 Leeds - The Packhorse UK
Di. 08.06.2010 Cardiff - Buffalo Bar UK
Mi. 09.06.2010 London - The Big Takeover UK
Do. 10.06.2010 Hamburg - Hafenklang Germany
Fr. 11.06.2010 Münster - Cafe Lorenz Germany
Sa. 12.06.2010 Berlin - Koma F Germany

FIRST REVIEW IS IN:

TAKEN FROM HERE:

"Dead Beat: Total Abuse, 'Mutt'

Few Texas bands demand your full attention like Austin's Total Abuse.


Since its formation in 2006, Total Abuse has toured the nation, played any house-show available, and put on unforgettable performances -- some of the most harrowing and disastrous that I've seen -- slowly carving its name deep into the annals of Texas punk like a prison tat. Now with the release of Mutt, the group's sophomore LP, Total Abuse has captured its most confident, confounding, and fully realized music to-date. Those with weak wills, ears and/or stomachs, turn back now.


If authenticity is your gravest concern in music, the first seconds of "Eunuch" should ring as the loudest antithesis of hardcore, tough-guy posturing ever recorded. "MAKE ME A EUNUCH/MAKE ME COMPLETE," demands vocalist Rusty Kelley beneath gathering storm clouds of resounding, one-note guitars and death-march drums. Is this ugly? Is it beautiful? Is this ironic? What the hell?!


Mutt is rife with such murky questions at every perilous, no-look turn. But don't go looking for answers. This isn't a record of easily decoded mission statements; there's no obvious message or lesson to be learned here. Total Abuse relishes basking in extremes. There is nothing tame or organic to how Mutt behaves. Favoring grotesque oddity and rigid control over all else -- this is hardcore for sadists.


Firebombed riffs, nihilistic abandon, churning, and stomping melodies -- the standard pieces of the '80s hardcore are all in place. What's truly captivating is Total Abuse's perverse, experimental rearrangement. Mutt distills that classic formula through three decades of diverse punk, hardcore and noise, reducing its subjects and sounds to their most primitive, unpredictable instincts. In tracks such as the title song and "Caligula" this takes shape through pounding a brash riff into submission, anxiously contorting the rhythm at free will, bending ringing notes out of tune, as reckless, shredding guitars peak in violent static.


On "Pure," guitars howl in wasted exhaustion through barren feedback, the rhythm feeling as though it's working against itself to betray any kind of progressive, rock fluidity. The riff slowly growing into cruel bloom, the guitars stick like a lump in your throat as Kelley rambles, "This is what I want, what I really, really want..." all the while the drums refusing to stay synced-up, the beat slightly off track. Whether it's a maelstrom of guitars sounding like a fork caught in a blender ("Secret Passage I") or distortion that could double for a two-ton, rusty carburetor turning over ("Fluid Exchange") these jarring moments are Total Abuse's fuel.


Sections of the music might recall acts such as Poison Idea, early Black Flag, as well as the modern weirdo hardcore of Cult Ritual and Drunkdriver, but this record is distinctly Total Abuse. Challenging, uncompromising, a wake-up-call in every sense of the phrase, Mutt is the most original punk album I've heard in 2010.


Dirty as a drag rat's pit, hungry for punishment, and proud of its scabs -- get bit.


P.S. -- Houston-based artist William Boone designed the impressive cover for the the band's LP. Check out more of his unique obsessions here."

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