They must worship Black Flag in Austria, as the first song strikes me as a more metal version of Black Flag; the vocals are howled in a Rollins fashion for sure. But let's face Black Flag is not Black Flag these days, and the Rollins Band is retired, so someone needs to scratch that itch. There is a good amount of sludge mixed in when it comes to the big riffs. The vocals also switch to a snarl midway into the song, which furthers this comparison. The riffs shift to a darker place I enjoy. "Pig Race to the Apocalypse" sounds like they just left the tape rolling and jammed out of the first song. They switch up the riffs in a more metal-than-punk manner, making me reasonably sure this is a sludge bandd with black Flag influence.
On "This Sadness Makes Me Rage," It feels like the vocals are balancing out the more melodic direction the guitars are going by being more abrasive. The song wanders into Jarboe doing a spoken-word section that sounds like his therapist giving him a pep talk, which works for me and makes it the most interesting song thus far. Both groove and chaos are colliding for "No Depression When Dead" as it devolves into a jazz-like din. There is a similar but more nuanced riff paving the way for "Wannabe VIP," which finds a girl taking over the mic. This is the band's third album so they clearly know what they want to do here.
The tense, muted riff driving "Good People Keep Their Mouths Shut..." carries a sinewy Jesus Lizard-ish mood. There is indeed a dash of noise rock in the burly mix of sounds as well. The most punk moment is "the Art of Shit," but even then some sludgy riffs crash in. It is, however, more Stooges than Black Flag, which I appreciate. Even though experimenting with samples gives it a twist, they stay pretty punk on "Cyberdyne Employment Application". This is still tempered with an almost Slayer-like riff. The vocals twist into an Eyehategod-like sneer on the last time; this is not the first time it's happened on this album, but the most prominent.
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