Endorphins Lost – Night People Review

It’s only been a few short months since the last outburst from these Pacific Northwestern powerviolence purveyors. Back in August, they put forth a killer EP in Head Sick, one that saw them leaning a bit further into the hardcore component of their grinding hardcore sound, six new original tracks augmented with covers of Cryptic Slaughter and Negative Approach. Like the Endorphins Lost releases that precede it, Head Sick was a basher, filled with primal rage and crusty riff. Born of the same creative burst, but emerging six months later, Night People furthers that fury.

Opening with the stuttering crust of “Hooverville,” Night People wastes little time diving straight into the chaos. Grinding blastbeats smash into hardcore heft; filthy tar-caked sludge slams against turn-on-a-dime stops in blink-and-you’ll-miss them tracks, a swirling maelstrom of frustration and rage. Vocals range from a punkish bark to crusty snarls to a throatier growl, although nothing here quite delves into the deeper, deathier approach, keeping Night People’s scope closer to the hardcore punk and powerviolence that provides the underpinning for everything Endorphins Lost has done. It’s all here, all those factors that made the previous two Endorphins records such strong blasts of gnarled anger, here in the maniacal franticness of “The Myth Of Modern Medicine,” in the twenty-second blistering of “Remington Right,” in the machine-gun drums of “Regulation Area Bombing.” Riffs emerge, are twisted around and around, then discarded; rhythms shift constantly, never settling, always on edge; nothing stays still, but the anger always burns.

The sludgy trudging introductory half of the title track effectively divides the record in equal sides (and it does so literally, if you’re cool enough to have the LP), a series of hanging chords and a snail’s-pace tempo providing a brief respite from the barrage around it. (I will age myself by saying this: the first chord, though – every time it plays, I just want to scream “kick it!” and then fight for my right to party, and… well, this is not that type of song.) After “Night People” spins itself up and down again, the second half of the record that shares its name rips and rages through more filth and fury ‘til it closes on another highlight, the three-minute “Rabbit Cage,” the sludgiest track on hand, dissonant muted chunk and twisting riff, hand in hand, until the latter third when the tempo spins up for one further frenzy, ending on a pit-baiting half-time swing and then… the end.

Inspired by the all-too-real struggles of mental health in modern times, frustrations with the systems that do so little to help – and particularly based upon those people who inhabit the darkness, the forgotten and the damned and the left-behinds – Night People puts all of that understandable anger in words and riffs and rhythms and noise. It’s not a pretty sound, but then again, it’s not a pretty topic. It’s dirty, and it’s violent, and that’s exactly how it should be.

These are tough times, so scream your damned head off.