PSYCHIC GRAVEYARD / USA NAILS – SPLIT
This split served as an opportunity to discover the American squad Psychic Graveyard, and they sure make a hell of a first impression kicking off with Building You A Rainbow, which is sharp and direct in style, then continuing to go effectively weird and off-colour in the trippy-vibing Strangest Hobbies.
Clearly, generating uncomfortable settings are these guys’ wheelhouse, as Love My Skeleton Too resonates with an unsettling darkness, but the tempo is suddenly flipped a 180 as they pick up the pace for the furiously snappy What Happens At Zero, before settling down and finishing up with Wrecked At The Yankee Swap, completing their entertaining contribution.
English crew USA Nails, who I’m familiar with having been a big fan of the Character Stop album, efficiently take the baton forth with the spicy intro It’s All In The Context, next amplifying the energy and aggression to blistering proportions via the mental Two Footed Jump, while the crunchily bass-heavy What Have We Become naturally examines how society is a real sh*tshow.
The guitar work is awfully good in the depressingly relevant God Help Us If There’s A War, Tooting Broadway is a simply delightful berserk rampage; the field where this group evidently shine strongest; and they carry that energy through into the likewise belting and forcible Love Embassy to bring an end to the proceedings.
As far as splits go, you couldn’t ask for a better pairing to have chained together for this hefty package, in which Psychic Graveyard impress with a moody and discomforting first half and USA Nails ramp it up to a wild and untamed degree for the turbulent second half.
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SMALL MUSIC SCENE 