Natural Law - Slump

Brooklyn's Natural Law is surging back to the forefront with a spankin' new EP, Slump. Following a ripping demo chock full of gritty, old school influence, Slump delves even further into bleakness and despair, unearthing waves of deafening, straight up hardcore. A split release between Katorga Works and Hesitation Wound, this one is already flying off internet shelves and distros around the country.

With five songs clocking in at about five and a half minutes, Natural Law's latest work picks up where the demo left off, but with even better sound quality and tighter playing. Like pulling the ripcord on a chainsaw, Slump immediately ignites into fast paced hardcore fury and blazes through the entire EP from front to back. Stripped down and in your face, the band leaves cutesy guitar diddlys and sluggish breakdowns in the dust, pouring all their effort into a positively crushing slab of wax.

Slump is already sold out from Katorga Works, but copies are still available from Hesitation Wound, so act fast if you haven't grabbed one of these already. The download link comes straight from the label, so support these guys if you can.

Download
Hesitation Wound
Natural Law

Divorce Money - EP

Enter the third release from the Southern California label, Video Disease. Picking up where the band left off, the label remains standing after the band dispersed to release further chaotic noise and grating riffs onto the unsuspecting public's ears. Well, if you're ordering an EP from the same label that pressed the last Pigeon Religion record, maybe you'll know exactly what to suspect, but that's besides the point. Black wax, large 45 holes, hand stamped labels and dust sleeves, along with a sleeve which contains literally no information whatsoever about the band are all contained in Divorce Money's presentation.

Hailing from New York, Divorce Money produce two songs of apocalyptic, abrasive music, completely dripping with torment and anger. The guitars shriek with fuzzed out distortion which is nearly akin to playing the instrument with a piece of broken glass and a guitar amp that's been thrown down a flight of stairs in a fit of rage one too many times. Both songs clock in at over three and a half minutes, with moments of grungy riffs as well as torture chamber-esque vocals which wail alongside the music.

While "Names B/W" and "Use Your Imagination" are both noticeably unique from each other, each song seems to build upon itself until culminating with a final gasp of crunchy, sloppy riffs and squealing feedback. The A side is more of a slow, deliberate garage punk rock Frankenstein monster, while the B side doubles up the pace, book-ending a brooding, disturbing interlude complete with almost unnecessarily harsh feedback and "Please die" echoing repeatedly through the microphone.

Over seven minutes of unapologetic and creepy pain ooze from this record, which is then filtered some sort of liquid painkiller haze, resulting in a remarkably fuzzy and pleasantly weird EP. Divorce Money might be pushing things slightly past their own limitations at points, but I sincerely doubt something like that concerns them. Rather, I wouldn't be surprised if they were doing it purposefully in the first place. The record was limited to a one time pressing of 200, which is of course sold out, but try checking some distros and see if you have any luck. More releases are in the works from Video Disease, so be sure to check out the blog and join the mailing list if this piques your interest.

Download
Video Disease Records