SECOND DEATH – s/t LP

SECOND DEATH debut with a 9 track MLP. Following the steps of London bands NO and PERMISSION from which the band shares half its members with additions from local bands SUBDUED and LAST AFFRONT. Pulling similar musical threads as their previous groups, their distinctive dissonant brand of hardcore is dense and claustrophobic, like there are too many notes crammed into too small a space, riffs poking out at odd, uncomfortable angles like the corners of a hand-me-down bureau in a cramped London bedsit. SECOND DEATH’s manic rhythms are littered with unexpected accents that disrupt any slide into safety, comfort, or convention, and while moments in “Sycophant” or “Caving” threaten to break into a mosh, there’s invariably an oddly timed accent that derails the choreography like a feral tweaker wandering into the pit. Ben from LAST AFFRONT handles vocals, and their voice and lyrics reflect the music’s sense of tortured isolation: short, clipped lines from a nerve rubbed raw, torn between fighting and fleeing, sparks of anguish flying in the direction of everyone and no one in particular. Life isn’t easy, and neither is SECOND DEATH’s music, but there’s poetry to how these nine tracks charge fitfully toward a resolution that never comes, a resonant echo of life’s self-perpetuating, ever-escalating cycles of anxiety and torment.