Release #2 from Aotearoa New Zealand trio Unruly traverses the same horrible ground as the band’s 2020 debut. In this case, though, similarity is no bad thing. Reinvention isn’t on the agenda, but nor is it required, with Unruly’s new Hominid EP sticking to the Te Whanganui-a-Tara (Wellington) band’s effectively nasty creative recipe, combining maximum amounts of wretchedness with equal quantities of obnoxiousness.
Once again, Hominid sees Unruly getting elbow-deep into humanity’s unstoppable slide into ruin. Admittedly, that’s not an explicit lyrical concern this time, with Hominid‘s hideous hymns featuring more grotesquely abstract utterances. However, like doom/sludge bands eternal, Unruly’s miserable songs evoke a bleak reality many endure.
Obviously, humankind is drowning in an ocean of issues. Every screen blasts images of environmental destruction, endless wars, and an ever-expanding array of inequities, intolerance, and injustice. Everything is fucked! But here’s where Unruly enter the frame, more than happy to soundtrack your daily stroll through a landscape of apocalyptic horrors. Like Unruly’s first foray, the band’s latest tracks are as punk as they are metal (and vice versa, of course), with Hominid‘s gloom-injected innards calling to mind the dankest and darkest odes of filth-merchants like Grief, Dystopia, and Noothgrush. Similarly, Unruly’s squalid sound itches like scabies and reeks like a septic tank, with the band’s vibe very much akin to stepping on a dirty needle.
None of the above is a surprise if you follow the ins and outs of the underground Southern Hemisphere music fraternity. Unruly’s members have featured in some of NZ’s most downer-buzz bands, including well-known (albeit long-defunct) sewage-spewers Meth Drinker and Drug Problem, and much like the aforementioned, Unruly’s narcotic tracks hang heavy, like a noose around your neck.
Recorded and mixed by Unruly’s co-vocalist and guitarist VV (aka Vanya Vitali) at his Scumbag College studio, the band’s latest low-gauge tracks combine high-tar riffs and cement-mixer bass with bludgeoning percussion and throat-wrecking howls. All the feedback-rattling stonk is delivered at an appropriately suffocating pace, with strung-out riffs powering tracks like “Mud Mountain”, “Cyst,” and “Necrotomy”. Hominid‘s nihilistic gravity drags you into its depths, and the EP ends with a lengthy closer, the humorously titled “Cabbage”. Therein, bassist S.L.D and drummer and co-vocalist T.R.A.P construct a wall of gut-wrenching noise around raw riffage as the eight-minute jam lurches and lunges, testing your mettle.
Unruly’s dirges hammer punishing riffs into your prefrontal cortex, driving bitter nails into your hopes and dreams. I’ve said it before, but Unruly’s music is tailor-made for that self-sabotaging misanthrope lurking inside us all. Life is full of adversities, regrets and suffering, which is precisely why horrible-sounding releases like Hominid resonate. We all need to hit play on something anti-everything now and then because negative noise is also (and often) liberating.
Praise be to prophets of doom like Unruly. Hominid isn’t going to purge all of your cynicism or exorcise every trace of despair. But at the very least, Unruly are here to reassure you that you’re not alone in thinking the world is a dumpster fire. Misery loves company, so snuggle up to this ‘fuck you’ fiesta.
