‘A different setting, The same scene, Purpose of life, What does it all mean? Nothing, Work, buy, consume, die, A pill a day to conceal the lie’ (Nothing)

Beyond Recognition is the debut six-track 7-inch from Washington DC’s Laughing Corpse, who feature members of Genocide Pact, Glitterer, and Red Death among others.  Yet this roll call is little guide to the darkly dissonant, bleakly nihilistic hardcore that we are treated to here as the desperation drenched vocals wallow in the isolation and defeat of the daily treadmill we allow to ensnare us.

It is also an EP that sees the band become progressively more expansive, not to say utterly unhinged, as it develops.  Side one kicks off with the rampaging Endless Game and locks into a fiercely surging battery from there, driven by some surprisingly clean, killer bass lines.  With this base established, the flip side becomes altogether more unpredictable as the band sweep from the swirling muscularity of Nothing to the bludgeoning, squalling Chapter 7 with a frenzied abandon.