PUPIL SLICER

Chaotic, angry times call for chaotic, angry music. PUPIL SLICER have read the room and have spent the last few years churning out some of the most brutal and bewildering music of the decade. Two years on from "Blossom", their second and most adventurous album, "Fleshwork" is here to set all of that madness and disquiet in stone. Fervently original from the start, Kate Davies and their comrades occupy a unique position in the UK's diverse, heavy music scene, where hardcore, metal, shoegaze and noise are forcibly united in a shower of shredded throats and blistered fingers. Both of their previous albums have been revelatory: impassioned missives from society's fringes, set to music that simply refuses to conform to any particular subgenre. As a resounding "fuck you" to the accepted way of things, PUPIL SLICER take some beating. "Fleshwork" hammers that self-created identity home with a fearless, vengeful thud.

There are many reasons to applaud this band for their singular approach: the fierce, righteous fury that informs Davies' lyrics, the nonchalant disregard for genre boundaries, and the unerring dedication to being really fucking noisy among them. This time around those elements remain present and correct, but there is an urgency to "Fleshwork" that was only intermittently present on "Blossom" and 2021 debut "Mirrors". These songs are still impressively chaotic and intense, from the driving disgust of opener "Heather", to the lurching, poly-riffing squall of "Sacrosanct", and on to the uproarious dark magic of closer "Cenote". But whether due to lineup changes or a simple change in mindset, "Fleshwork" mitigates some of the chaos with a ferocious desire to connect. The band have wryly labelled their sound as "trans inclusive radical hatred", and while that epithet serves perfectly well as a warning to anyone harboring idiotic culture war views, it also says a lot about how honest and smart PUPIL SLICER are. Standing up for the downtrodden is an often-overlooked pastime in heavy music, but Davies screams their bilious contempt for the forces of darkness with tangible emotion and a raw power that cannot be faked. "Nomad" draws from blistering black metal and woozy post-rock, but the venom in the singer's delivery is a reaction to real world turmoil. As a result, as the riffs bite and the willfully obtuse song structures cast their spell, PUPIL SLICER touch nerves that even the most extreme bands fail to reach.

There are moments of subtlety and beauty here too. "Heather" is a largely visceral blast of rage, but there are deft, keyboard intrusions that bring color to the all-out savagery. Similarly, the title track tempers its brutality with ethereal vocals that rise up from the noise like escaping spirits, balancing out the sheer, lobotomized aggression of its skewed riffs. The torpid stuttering of "Gordian" could be mistaken for a remorseless, atonal assault, but winds up being one of the catchiest songs in PUPIL SLICER's repertoire. Likewise, "White Noise" is simultaneously hard as nails and disarmingly melodic and mellifluous. This is ferociously intelligent music, played by musicians who embrace the responsibility of giving succor to the voiceless. The closing "Cenote" sums up the whole, noble enterprise. A song about the appalling way that supposedly civilized societies mistreat and disenfranchise disabled people, it moves gracefully through eight minutes of blissful dynamic about-turns and caustic crescendos, haunted by MY BLOODY VALENTINE-style ghost vocals and perpetually simmering undercurrents of horror. In keeping with the rest of this irresistible torrent of brilliant ideas and unfettered wrath, it is truly stunning.