SPREAD THE DISEASE

It is easy to become desensitized to so-called extreme music. Bands of various descriptions have pushed the boundaries of what is vaguely acceptable to human ears, and as time passes, the notion that a scream, a blastbeat or a barrage of ugly noise is liable to upset anyone becomes nonsensical. The average idiot on the street is still likely to have a heart attack when confronted by some of the stuff we, as fans of the heavy and the weird, listen to as a matter of course, but it takes a band of some distinction to make a record that truly wrenches breath from lungs with its murderous madness: SPREAD THE DISEASE have just made exactly that kind of album. As its title suggests, "The Darkness. The Dread. The Suffering" is not designed to make anyone feel better about their lot in life. An untamed eruption of bitterness, hatred and dismay, this is a blackened hardcore shock to the system, and one of the most genuinely startling records that anyone will release this year.

SPREAD THE DISEASE have a history. First time around, they only managed to choke back their disgust at their own existence for a couple of years. Two albums were released, both of which took a rusty hatchet to hardcore's unerring formula, and then the Canadians abruptly called it quits. But within that brief flash of activity, a solid reputation was forged. 26 years later, SPREAD THE DISEASE have conjured a comeback that feels more like an imperious rebirth than a simple recommencement of activities. "The Darkness. The Dread. The Suffering" is an act of all-out war, with songs that turn hostility into a virtue, and a thick atmosphere of soul-sapping terror that threatens to engulf listeners in the most invasive and destructive of ways.

A recent recruit, vocalist Shane Post is a vital component. SPREAD THE DISEASE have plenty of black metal substance to back up their hardcore fury, and his utterly deranged vocals help to push these songs from simple extremity to something far more twisted and upsetting. Like RINGWORM's Human Furnace or the late, great Johnny Morrow of IRON MONKEY, Post's screams are feral and ferocious: an inhuman, barely coherent response to the sonic chaos unfolding around him. On terrifying opener "Light Opaque", the band's monstrous riffing and none-more-necro fog of distortion would be unnerving enough, but as Post threatens to gargle and spew himself inside out, the sum of all those parts is elevated to a single, apocalyptic blast of faceless violence. Similarly, on the drawn-out brutal beating of "The Blight In Their Eyes", the vocals maintain their intensity while being assailed by warped, malevolent ambience, crazed guitar parts that seem to slowly eat themselves, and a marauding, muscular performance from the rhythm section that feels like the antagonistic result of some debilitating, trance-like state. On the album's most obvious standout, "Gods And Politics", SPREAD THE DISEASE dabble briefly in CONVERGE-style discord and dirginess, before exploding into a frenzied D-beat that dowses DISCHARGE's original blueprint with shattered teeth and greasy bloodstains. As the blastbeats fly, the sound of vexed humanity stamping on hope's skull forever is unmistakable.

This is an album for people who feel that INTEGRITY are a bit too commercial. SPREAD THE DISEASE are only a hardcore band in the sense that their music has grown from a similar starting point. In every other respect, "The Darkness. The Dread. The Suffering" is what happens when cries for help go unanswered, and the weight of the world bears down on your fragile frame with all the vicious persistence of swarming locusts. Everything is fucked. There is no hope. This is the soundtrack.