DYSTOPIA - HUMAN = GARBAGE (1994)
Are you angry? Are you angry... at the government? Are you angry at other people? Do you hate everything and want just want to ****ing die? Are you paranoid that someone is watching you (no me neither)? Feel loathsome? Do you worry about the end of the world? Do you like loud, angry, music about hating things?
Boy have I got the album for you.
This band is about the punkiest thing going in sludge metal. Dystopia is more or less a crust punk band that sometimes slows down and plays like Crowbar. And boy do they rip, this is a very aggressive crust sound edging into power-violence. The album features throat threading screams and violent drumming. I promise you it will make you want to beat up your parents.
It also is an example of heavy music that uses sample collage stuff well -- though it's very edgy and disturbing. This is a very explicitly anti capitalist album, and the general vibe it gives off is an almost misanthropic hatred for the society the band has to live in verging on suicidal and homicidal impulses. Heavy stuff.
When we do get breaks from the buzzsaw guitars, what we get are mostly bass driven moments that have an angular, post punk feel (this is actually kind of how the album starts, before hitting you with a fat sludge riff). So, without anything super elaborate instrumentation wise this band effectively creates an oppressive, paranoid, and inarguably dystopian atmosphere paired with really chaotic thrashing and the kinetic energy of a bulldozer.
Put on this album and fight someone in public. Go fight the mayor of your town with this playing. Just kidding. Go like liberate some animals or like idk man. Go like not bathe to this album.
Great music to be pissed to. Whirlwind battery acid.
Oh and the vocalist for this band would go on to form Noothgrush, who I'll probably cover at some point. Oakland actually has quite a few good sludge bands to look out for.