A label that is increasingly becoming indispensable, Buzzhowl announced its presence with a stunning compilation (reviewed here) before consolidating its approach with the release of the quite fantastic Elvis is dead EP from Don’t Try. Now, the label is putting out its first full-length – the cunningly-titled LP II from US outfit Dead Tenants. The band were hailed on these pages for their contribution to the compilation (Reset, also featured here on the album), so the only real question is whether they can sustain the intensity of their sonic assault over a full-length effort. It doesn’t take long, of course, for the band to answer with a resounding ‘Yes!’, and what LPII lacks in duration, it more than makes up for in a ferocity that will leave you breathless.
Kicking off with Outrun, the band wear their punk credentials openly, as Doug Tenant lays molten slabs of guitar over Alex C’s punishing basslines and Alex McKendry’s multi-limbed percussive assault. Reminiscent of the alternative rock scene that saw bands like Fugazi and the Jesus Lizard in the US give way to bands like McLusky and Urusei Yatsura in the UK, Dead Tenants are not interested in genre tropes so much as explorations in sound that see guitars hum and buzz as they are stressed well beyond their typical operational limits. As we edge into the equally svelte rubbed out, it’s clear that technique is minimally deployed, eschewed in favour of an inchoate approach that places innovation and intuition ahead of established norms and, as a result, the music feels as if it could all fall apart at any minute in a welter of over-loaded amplification and slashed strings. Not Walking, a lengthier song that rages into the void over the course of four rhythmically-dizzying minutes, implies that there is method amidst the madness, Alex’s drums sending the music spiraling towards a cliff-edge before DTCD I hurtles ground-wards with frightening speed in just 51 grueling seconds. The first half ends with the monstrous reset, a track that should be familiar to all who checked out the compilation (and if not, why not?), and which remains a firm favourite.
Kicking off side 2 (it’s awesome to think in these terms again), Marginalia spits blood from the stage over an intro that sees guitars reduced to wood shavings, only for Doug to send the track off on a Sonic Youth tangent, all howling feedback and off-kilter noise. It leaves little else for cornered to do, other than fight back savagely, the ever-present hum of a guitar in permanent overdrive signalling a jazz-infused barrage of noise that sounds like the Dillinger Escape Plan recording Hives’ covers, underwater in a hyperbaric chamber. Intense isn’t the word, and the shock of the band’s sonic assault lasts well beyond the track’s actual two-and-a-half-minute run time. Not exactly a contrast, but the surging Cheapskate has a more straightforward punk feel amidst its frayed guitars and churning bass before the band head once more into McLusky territory with the nimble punk of Asterisk seeing the guitar wrapped around a bass-line before everything comes to an end with DTCDII – a hellish cacophony that hurtles at the listener with a berserker gleam in its eye as de-tuned guitars are ground into the face of unsuspecting amps.
There’s nothing quite like the naked adrenalin rush of a feral noise-rock band and Dead Tenants perfectly encapsulate the fire and fury of a band who exist outside of all perceived boundaries. The recording perfectly captures the arcing power of the band’s unhinged delivery and yet, for all the untrammeled rage, the album never devolves into noise for noise’s sake – there’s a precision to the band’s attack that suggests genius at the heart of it all. Brutal, beautiful punk rock in excelsis, LPII is simply crushing. 9
