Take a meaty, hard riff and inject it full of bath salts. Grill it over a deep, gritty rumble of a bassline and smother it in a landslide of jarring, angular, pinpoint-precise drums and a slight nostalgic croon. Once this combination has been thrown in to a blender of cacophony, you can begin to imagine the sound of MUTOID MAN, the latest project from Cave In’s Stephen Brodsky and Converge’s Ben Koller.

My Black Friday went from being just another day in Canada to the day I stumbled upon a pleasant surprise of a face-melter. Brodsky’s vocals have a sleazy, crackling, distorted quality about them. Imagine the filtered croon of the Strokes’ Julian Casablancas combined with Every Time I Die’s Keith Buckley and the James Cleaver Quintet. Sexy, sleazy, and sassy. Throw in some huge, hefty basslines that rumble your core like an earthquake, as well as blazing hot leads and frenzied, chaotic drumming that stomps on the line between sense and cacophony. Woah.

These gents are loud, fast, heavy, and furious. At times, it almost gets to be too much, given the roughness of the production and the crazy amount of beats packed in to every song. But Mutoid Man gets it damn right on Helium Head, so your jaw drops in awe instead of your ears cringing from chaos. Do yourself a favour and listen to the whole release below, and let’s hope we hear more from these guys in the future:

https://soundcloud.com/earsplit/sets/mutoid-man-helium-head

Until next week, grit your teeth, clench your fists and bang your head.

-Brad