Condition: Actual Hell 12″

Description

Big as a pig and vicious as hell. The torturous maelstrom sounds of bone breaks and thuggish isolationism. Howling feedback underscores the massive swirling riffs and relentless battery of drums. Foul, tumultuous vocals made entirely of the final exhalations of humanity really send this opus to the apex. A perfect band. For those unfamiliar, CNDITIN are a raging south Californian corpse-beat unit more akin to the likes of BASTARD than DISCHARGE. Fucking heavy. We couldn’t be more excited about this LP. 800 copies on black vinyl come housed in a heavy duty tip-on jacket featuring art by Matthew Adis complimented nicely by a 24×36 poster insert with art by Abe Social & Madison East.

Our take: When I hear a new current d-beat record, I generally find that they split into two camps: on the one hand you have the traditionalists who are basically making heavy, riff-oriented rock songs, and then you have the bands who latch onto the noisier, more avant-garde potential of the sound. Both styles are really enjoyable when done well, but rarely do I hear a band who can fuse them. However, I’ve decided that I think that’s what this new Condition LP does. They aren’t afraid of the confrontational, dynamic changes in textures of noise that characterizes the approach of a band like D-Clone, but they can also write (and effectively ride) a heavy riff in the same way a band like Aspects of War or Framtid can. This LP didn’t actually sink in for me until I came to that theory… on the first few listens I was a little frustrated that it wasn’t either more extreme or more rocking and catchy, but after a handful of listens I’ve come to really enjoy how they meld together these two diverse strains of d-beat. So, if you are a die-hard member of either camp and you have very particular ideas about what d-beat should be you may find yourself frustrated, but if you’re open to it it’s easy to hear this thing for the rager it is.