INTEGERS

Frantic garage-tech from the Louisiana trio, here their second go at the mathcore they cultivated on the debut but more brutally heavy, and more progressive, as on nine-minute 'Axiomatic Fragment', a lurching web of desperately fabricated rhythms and lines dirty as a wino's balls but played with utter precision. Early Metallica may spring to mind but further comparisons are useless, and they sound little like Dysrhythmia, Oxes, F*cking Champs or the other acts they're lumped in with. Sheppert, Judice and Harris are originals in a huge field of unique bands, and totally serious about what they're doing. Twisting and gnarled is 'The Great Caldera' with hot group dynamics (think Sabbath 1972 or so), and the warbling hum of Stephen Sheppert's synth opens huge 'Spooky Action at a Distance'. Mean riffage in 'He's Got an Axe!', gurgling, gasping for breath, drowning in its own thick arterial blood with a soft refrain before the deathblow, 'Drilling Holes Through Space' is aptly named, and massive nineteen-minute 'The Forever War' carries the full weight of this band's physical power and emotional transference as it takes us through an epic battle. Great job, fellas.