The Locust - New Erections

Straight up, The Locust's New Erections may prove to be the best avant crust-funk punk noise grindcore album to drop in 2007. With a legendary (and healthy) distaste for audience satisfaction and eccentric song titles that go from the bizarre (One Manometer Away From Mutually Assured Relocation, anybody?) to the observational commentary (The Unwilling... Led By the Unqualified... Doing the Unnecessary... – fuck yeah!), this third album should see these lunatics billed Above the likes of Fantomas, Ruins and Melt Banana, or at least assured the position of one of the few genuine punk bands playing today. Genre-hopping at this speed can get tiresome for those without musical ADD, but The Locust's spiraling synth vertigo, spastic vocal call-and-responses, guitars that seem to operate in their own space-time continuum and cyborg-Thor propelled drums go beyond being technically dazzling and end up sounding like the ultimate party music. Maybe. [Ali Maloney]