Review Summary: Grimy, confrontational hardcore from London, England
English patriotism has been resurrected on a massive scale in recent years. The tabloid media have taken the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq, added a dash of Good Guys vs. the Bad Guys and waved the idea of the Great British Spirit in our grey, deluded faces until we can’t get enough of the awesomeness that is England. In reality, of course, life in England is still a grisly countdown to the moment you get stabbed in the neck by some feral youth with a Youtube fetish, only to be discarded in the filthy murk of some condom-infested canal. Thankfully, Pariso have avoided the lure of the wonky-eyed automatons who long for the days of empire, instead offering a nasty ooze of hardcore punk in their debut,
Sooner Insignificant Better. Frontman, Mazz, stems his pained screams in ‘Lonqvist’ to say that ‘All my heroes have failed me, and they’ll f
ucking fail you too,’ effectively summing up the feel and subject matter of the album in just a few words.
For a record clocking in around the twelve minute mark,
Sooner Insignificant Better is a surprisingly textured affair. Discordance, monolithic chords and pure battery all get a look-in, with Mazz stepping away completely for the first half of ‘Mystifier’, allowing the song to build up a scabby atmosphere before bursting at the ragged seams. Sounding like a b
astard-cross between Voorhees and Iron Monkey, Pariso keep the energy levels high throughout, except for the rather gratuitous intro track, which is a little uneventful. Layers of poisonous noise are spread over one another, from the low-key grime of the rhythm section, to the spastic/droning guitars and the gut-felt screams. Each song boasts a variety of tempos and techniques, from the sludge and thunder of ‘House of Squalor’ to the riff and rush of ‘Fevered Egos’. This might prevent any individual track from standing out amongst the rest, but really just provides a sense of great consistency. Far from groundbreaking, but full of p
iss-and-vinegar,
Sooner Insignificant Better might be the start of something truly, delightfully grim.
