United Fruit – Fault Lines

Glasgow quartet United Fruit have clearly taken time to build since debuting the sharp burst of post-hardcore excellence that was their 2009 Mistress Reptile Mistress EP. As a truer representation of their live shows, Fault Lines plays like a broader attack on the senses – touched by the kind of dynamism that marked out Trail of Dead’s Source Tags & Codes as an adrenaline shot to the heart of a dying genre.

Kamikaze waves the starting flag on thirty-odd minutes of all-out abrasion served at F1 velocity where the foot rarely slips from the pedal. Among the album's many highlights, Red Letter is exemplary of their stock-in-trade – guitars swarm like a wasp nest on fire while Iskander Stewart’s hungry vocals fight to be heard, all shot through with a creative sense of melody. Cynics might dismiss Fault Lines as homage to another time or place; they won't know what they're missing. [Dave Kerr]