‘Come for me, drain complacency, Come for me, veto pleasure, succeed, Come for me, gouge my apathy, Form-failed knees, defaced will’ (Fire)

Following two earlier EPs and a split with Future Suck, Melbourne’s Shove now make their full-length debut on the absolutely searing Agency.  Front and centre are the swaggering, menacing bass lines and rabid vocals, equal parts venomous snarl and urgently desperate yelp.  Meanwhile, the raw yet burly guitars unleash waves of juddering riffage, riven through with flares of discordant melody and flourishes of dissonant invention, underpinned throughout by frenzied, cymbal awash drums.

Lyrically, the album unfurls as a cryptically allusive, darkly fragmented stream of consciousness that explores the dangers of our complacency in the face of our society’s distorted values and the continued corrosive influence of entrenched patriarchal attitudes.  The battery is as invigorating as it is unrelenting, with personal stand outs including the surging ferocity of Observer, the jolting savagery of Strike Crisis, the bleakly infectious T.D.T, and the utterly unhinged closer, Bored.