You can probably have a fairly good guess at what Baptists sound like just by reading a bit about their debut album, ‘Bushcraft’. Words like “seething”, “discordant” and “Kurt Ballou” stand out in the press release. This is savage hardcore, that much may be obvious. Quite how feral Baptists sound, however, is not apparent until ‘Betterment’ rips out of the speakers and beats in your skull with all the subtlety of a psychotic hammer salesman.
At twenty-seven minutes in length, ‘Bushcraft’ avoids the problem of overstaying its welcome. Only the three-thirty ‘Bullets’ and the five minute ‘Soiled Roots’ breach the three minute mark, and four tracks all come in under two. Clearly Baptists are a band unwilling to fuck around with unnecessary experimentation. In place of extroverted time signature dalliances or brushes with electronica there is introverted brutality. This is the sound of a vocalist tearing himself to shreds whilst the musicians around him concoct enough noise to shake the studio to its foundations.
With Kurt Ballou behind the production desk you are always guaranteed a production that does not compromise on tonal fidelity yet also delivers just amount the right of lo-fi edge. His skills only accentuate Baptists’ inherent ferocity. When Black Flag started hardcore punk all these years ago, even they could scarcely have been prepared for the future, a future where hardcore assaults are as unforgivingly vicious as this one. Indeed, it is hard to see this effort not being one of the stand-outs in the genre come the end of the year. It does exactly what it says on the tin, but when the abstract is as tantalisingly deafening and soul-destroying as this, that is the least of your problems...
‘Bushcraft’ is out on Monday via Southern Lord.
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At twenty-seven minutes in length, ‘Bushcraft’ avoids the problem of overstaying its welcome. Only the three-thirty ‘Bullets’ and the five minute ‘Soiled Roots’ breach the three minute mark, and four tracks all come in under two. Clearly Baptists are a band unwilling to fuck around with unnecessary experimentation. In place of extroverted time signature dalliances or brushes with electronica there is introverted brutality. This is the sound of a vocalist tearing himself to shreds whilst the musicians around him concoct enough noise to shake the studio to its foundations.
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