I've always loved Water Torture's mix of harsh noise experimentation and grinding bass terror, but Pillbox reaches new heights (or is that depths) of bassgrinding skullduggery, if you can imagine such a thing exists. I recently caught some bare-bones incarnation of this band on tour (kinda like The Melvins when they tour with a reduced line up) , which was missing the harsh noise element. This was okay live, but the harsh noise parts of Pillbox are really interesting, and provide an atmospheric foil to the claustrophobic bass'n'drums powerviolence. There's a particularly awesome harsh noise track a few minutes into the record, called "Product 1". Another, much more chilled ambient track "Creature Of Repitition" rather randomly reminds me of Blues For The Red Sun by Kyuss before it kicks in.
Comparisons to Man Is The Bastard and/or Bastard Noise would be too easy, or possibly lazy of me, but if I'm entirely honest, it's hard to sound original when there already is a massively influential band that mixes bass/drums grindcore with harsh noise in existence. Water Torture does sound different though, which is actually quite something of a feat considering how similar both bands are in theory. Water Torture is kinda like the MITB for the current generation of crusties, grinders and hardcore kids into powerviolence.
When I caught 'em on tour, vinyl copies still hadn't come in, but you can pre-order with the label Nerve Altar who are putting it out. In the meantime, the entire thing is streaming on Bandcamp so do yourself a solid and listen to this shit, it's so brilliant.
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