New Locust record gets a "must read" review from Aversion.com
Sometimes music should not make you feel good. It doesn't always have to sound nice. Even in extreme circumstances, it doesn't even have to be fun to listen to, or even bearable. The Locust know this, and have been making music some of the most vital albums in hardcore for a few years. The trouble is, you probably won't want to hear them.
The corner that hardcore-descended bands have painted themselves into is ironic, to say the least. Plague Soundscapes, The Locust's Anti-/Epitaph debut, is proof of that. The spazzed-out post-post-hardcore that the band built its name upon hasn't changed a whole lot with this release, and, really, the band's got little room to move with its sound. That's okay. What's important about this album, or any Locust record for that matter, is that it's about pushing the limits. That it does superbly: From the screeching sonics of "Psychic Sasquatch," which sounds like an average post-hardcore band being thrown into a blender full of synthesizer-based space noises to "Captain Gaydar, Turn on Your Radar," a furious combination of spazzy synths, higher-calculus level math-rock tempo changes and ear-splitting riffs and screams, The Locust proves that it's the most extreme band on the planet right now, leading the world of hardcore God only knows where.
Envelope-pushing or not, it's still hard to get around the fact that Plague Soundscapes is a truly difficult listen. No matter how tight the band plays its songs (incredibly tight at times) and no matter how progressive its angle is (can you say f-f-f-fresh?), The Locust isn't the type of band that can be listened to on a regular basis. It's jarring, disorienting and, quite simply, too much. That's just how the band wants it.
Has it come to this? Has the rock world become so desensitized that we've got to turn to an album that's nearly unlistenable in its extremity? Are the only buttons left unpushed those so far out there that it's nearly impossible to reach them?
If Plague Soundscapes was conceived a conventional, listen-in-your-car sort of album, it's a miserable failure. The Locust, however, seems too smart for that. Plague Sounscapes is an album about eliciting reactions from an audience that's been desensitized by years of Satanism, drug references, violence and a million other provoking themes in rock'n'roll. In that, it's a success.
- Matt Schild
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