SNAFU are true to their namesake, having only released their second album a month ago on bandcamp. The re-release marks the availability of the second album on vinyl which for audiophiles might be the definitive edition. Even without any post production white noise in listening to it it’s still reason enough to burn your books and subjugate your neighbours.
Present Day Plague is an action packed nineteen tracks full of corrosive Grindcore and seamless in it’s heretical onslaught where its spiteful social commentary is martyred with just enough bile to be entertaining rather than feral. Contorting the forty-two minute run time into a gamut of horrific riffs and twisting time into a heavy dragoon to give you some razor-sharp distraction.
It’s a curious piece in that the intensity doesn’t just lie in the battery of hot as fire guitar chokes and trails. As these guys are very attentive to mood, causing a heavy atmosphere by adapting synthetic elements to fit their needs. Their use of samples affects the scenes portrayed to give the tracks some abstract context within the tirade of scorching riffs and assists in creating depths of even more illicitly depraved imagery.
It’s really spooky. It’s Cybergrind. Although there are many bands that have dappled in blending the coarse and often abrasive textures of extreme metal with moogwave they often end up trying to take on the dance floor, forgetting that their roots are fixed in the mosh pit. SNAFU don’t but they’re not shy about it either.
Those moments of synthetic leveling may just be exposition but they build a dank tension to improve the release of the punk energy that thunders through the riffs riding on chunky bass lines. The contrast between the incendiary guitar riffs and smoggy synths create a dense dynamic that’s imposing but not overpowering.
Situation Normal All Fucked Up’s second album Present Day Plague is their pièce de résistance. A pandemic of scorching riffs and eerie soundscaping helped along with insightful and impressionable vocals. where the concept is symptomatic to frenzy. Yet even as we are infected with scum this albums holds the remedy.
8/10
