Malignant Order: This Is Mankind? Demo cassette

Description

Crashing razor sharp velocity veering between the endearing tectonics of primo era Finnish HC and the chaos and noise of early Japanese HC, Malignant order sound like faded white paint on the back of a cracked leather jacket slowly scraping away against the coarse concrete of some venue lost in the time and space of some aggregate European city. Featuring the vocal debut of the talismanic Billy Trick (Stingray), Malignant ORder delivers a howling wail into the void which sit on top of perfect drumming, guitar playing that equally smirks and snarls, and a blasting low end which ensures your speakers will crackle for months to come. Not once do these five songs falter into a cartoonish genre trope. Instead they kick blaring sounds which wouldnt have been out of place on Welcome to 1984 flying through the doors of what we know about making a racket in 2024. FFO The Execute, Kohu-63, Framtid, Terveet Kdet, Ataque Frontal, and other music for uplifting gourmandizers. (Jonah Falco)

Our take: La Vida Es Un Mus brings us a demo from this new (presumably) UK band. Im not sure which bands Malignant Order shares members with other than Stingray, but their apocalyptic, metal-informed punk sound has a lot in common with London bands like Subdued, Second Death, and Permission. I hear a lot of 80s UK anarcho-punk in their sound, but I also hear something of Black Flags existential angst in Malignant Orders vibe, particularly the desperate-sounding vocals. As with some of the aforementioned bands, theres something unapproachable about how Malignant Order presents themselves that can make them a bit tough to listen tothere are no concessions to putting the listener in a more pleasant headspacebut these are supremely effective as gritty downer jams.