Meatwound’s Addio is a bulldozing bludgeon of an album, taking a lot of elements of arty noise rock, hardcore, industrial, proto-sludge, and some of the noisier extreme metal of the 80s and 90s. This is all congealed into some sort of gelatinous mass of general nastiness and bad feelings, which Meatwound then force feeds you for the duration of these proceedings.

Meatwound is all about blunt force trauma, pummeling you into submission with their hyper-masculine, pile-driven rhythms. The bass and drums are typically in lockstep, like the hypnotic battery of a industrial hammer press. Relentless machines, stamping out steel plates all day, every day. Other times, the bass and drums play each others foil, going onto these sort of jazzy/funk/punk tangents, in this tight framework of metallic hardcore.

The guitars are textural color a biggest part of the time that slither and weave around the drums and bass, utilizing a lot of fucked up arpeggios and droney, discordant Devil’s chords. Where the drums and bass are metal pressing against metal, the guitars are skin scraping off onto concrete, bringing forth an organic, “living” element to Addio; even if that element is all infected and scabbed over. At times, there is a dash of black metal tremolo-picked blurr, which is a pretty nifty contrast to the bass-heavy punishment which is Meatwound’s default mode.

One of the coolest things they do on this record, is on “Hand of God”. This song has this huge, completely blown out riff, which is just 3 notes – distorted and sustained for a full bar of 4/4.  They basically appropriated a Hellhammer riff; which if you’re gonna steal, steal from the best, right? Then it goes into this part reminiscent of Napalm Death’s catchy-as-fuck verse riff off “Greed Killing”.

The vocals are really good; comparable to the burly hardcore bellow of someone like Neurosis’s Scott Kelly, or that dude from Coalesce. The provide a lot of forward momentum to a band that is obsessed with forward momentum.

Compared to a lot of stuff I’ve reviewed here lately, Addio is satisfyingly immediate and visceral. What you hear on the first note, is what you hear on the last note. Every element of this band is all hammers, all the time. From the opening riff cycle of album opener “In Toilet”, you can tell you’re in for a beating.

Expect to be hit hard, and hit often, for the next 30 minutes or so.

[Visit the band's website]

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