Ultraphallus – Sowberry Hagan

Deviants of the world, rejoice! After four years of having no-one twisted enough to fill the blackened boots of Khanate, we now have Ultraphallus around to blight our dreams. Their take on industrial noise is a much more groove-oriented one than that practiced by Alan Dubin and co., but it’s just as malevolent; think old-school punk rock run through an industrial thresher and you’re almost there.

To offset the grimy riffs of songs like River Jude there is the nightmarish doom of Indians Love Rain and The Red Print, the latter featuring Oxbow’s Eugene Robinson on vocals, turning the charm up to maximum and half-crooning, half-croaking his way through the musical equivalent of a bomb-stricken city. That such a sound was recorded at a farm in Belgium is strange, but given the contorted nature of the album and its creators, perhaps it’s not so surprising after all. [David Bowes]