Well, isn’t this just a barrel of rainbows and fucking unicorns?

Scottish Hardcore rays of sunshine Razor Sharp Death Blizzard obviously aren’t mincing words about their current outlook on life. If it’s light-of-heart positivity and joy you’re looking for, just keep walking, friend – ‘cuz This shit is bleak. Like, BLEAK bleak. Somebody please give these guys a call and check in on them. I’m worried.

While firmly rooted in hardcore, there’s a good dose of Swedish death thrown into the mix, giving these guys a bit of a Dirt Forge or Wolverine Blues-era Entombed flavor, found most evidently on tracks like “Auto Erotic Asphyxiation”  that rumbles along at a bruiser’s steady, but persistent pace. The title track kicks off the feel-good fun times on a little bit of a misleading note however; after a long, building intro, the band launches into what’s actually a fairly upbeat, chuggy riff that sounds like something The Ghost Inside might put together. If it weren’t for the anthemic screams of “THE WORLD IS FUCKED!” during the track’s chorus, you might actually be fooled into thinking this might be a more uplifting affair. Things even stay on a bouncier path on follow-up “Fascist,” calling in more classic hardcore influences akin to Sick of it All or Madball. The world, to this point, seems alright.

But this proves to be the emotional high, and one-by-one the rest of the album’s tracks seem to take another step downwards into a pit of despair and discontent with the world at large. “Auto Erotic Asphyxiation” maintains a sliver of hope with a swingy, catchy death n’ roll vibe, but the mood is undoubtedly turning down an irreversibly darker path, coming to full realization  on the plodding, moody “Small Town” that chokes out any and all signs of life and stomps them firmly into the ground. By the end of the song, the feeling of existential dread is shifted towards outright anger, exploding into the exceptionally NSFW “Parasitic Cunts,” a venomous, no-punches-pulled track boasting a constant, brimming-with-positivity backup vocal refrain of “WHY DON’T YOU FUCKING DIE?!” that builds to the albums first real bone crusher of a breakdown.

The tempo picks up briefly on the crossover-appealing “Failure,” but the closing chant of “YOU ARE A FAILURE! YOU ALWAYS FAIL” keeps things on the, uh, less-cheery side, which slides neatly into the wallowing pit that is the bluntly titled “Suicide,” a track starts slow and then proceeds to drag itself methodically over burning coals of self-hatred (though I admit, I got a good chuckle out of vocalist Jaimie Clark’s inevitable failure to hide his Scottish brogue on the line “WHAT AM I? WHERE AM I? WHEW AM I?!” A truly admirable effort to stave it off for this long).

By the time the particularly aggressive “Stormy Waters” and the long, doomy and gloomy “Chug Chuggery,” I’m mentally and emotionally exhausted. I know the outlook on the world right now may not be super duper – but the weather’s finally getting nicer, the leaves and flowers are finally out in full bloom, there’s signs that maybe we’re starti (**NONSENSICAL TRUMP TWEET**HURRICANE HEADING THIS WAY**MASS SHOOTING KILLS DOZENS**JERRY STILLER DEAD**)… Ah… ok well, the world is a cesspool. Carry on, angry Scots. Carry on.

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