Review Summary: Enemy Noise fulfills their intentions and begs you to keep an eye out for them in the future with four tracks displaying their lo-fi hardcore destruction.
Enemy Noise's
Rough Demos's name is no misnomer, let that be clear. From every nook and cranny of this demo oozes out a distinct fuzz that makes itself comfortable around the layers of engrossing dissonance that this hardcore punk outfit has laid out for us listeners. Their music drills a hole into your brain with disastrous walls of guitar noise that may disarm a few unprepared listeners at first, but seeping through the distorted, rumbling thicket comes out unadulterated punk - chilling, catchy and satisfying. And believe it or not, this lo-fi production ethic enhances the album's appeal. It solidifies grit and magnifies the preexisting dense vortex of guitars, bass and unrelenting drum beats, which oddly enough hold a slight sharpness to them. This distinct amount of muddiness makes it nearly impossible for most of the tracks on display to not get caught in your mind like flies in a spider's web. That visceral shout penetrates the ears with vigor and determination. It picks away at the guitar riffs as though they were scabs, and the drums punch away frantically nearby. It's primal energy - brash, loud and relentless.
Yet inside this rough-n-tumble hardcore soundscape is a more penetrable trait, something more comfortable and something essential to these abrasive teasers. That trait is fun.
Rough Demos is simply caked in it so that the tracks on display aren't just running through vast fields of angular production values and modern-day hardcore music without leaving an impression. So many mediocre hardcore outfits have churned out boring imitations with nothing else to bring to the table, so the addition of fun on such a high scale becomes a very important factor to this demo's success. Unfortunately, there's not much else to be said about these teasers because like many demos do, this collection is just a taste of what's to come. However it does its job well, calling out to you to feast your eyes on what's coming next, thereby fulfilling its purpose in an energetic and fun way with just a little bit more to offer and nothing more.
