‘I wanna do the best, To do the best I can, But everything I hold, Melts in my hands, But if I stare too long, It all turns just turns to sand’ (Wanna Be Good)

I must admit that I fell in a rather big way for Faze’s 2021 debut 7-inch, Content.  And I was just getting to the point where I feared that it might prove to be the Montreal band’s solitary, if rather splendid, statement.  But I needn’t have worried, as they are back with a new 12-inch, Big Upsetter, and it has most assuredly been worth the wait.

Faze’s defining virtues are the ability to infuse their avowedly hardcore punk base with a myriad of trippy psychedelic-meets-noise rock influences.  These flares of invention are woven into the very fabric of their sound and lend the hypnotic, contagiously relentless riffage an intoxicating, hedonistic headiness.  When combined with their equally unerring focus on building each track towards an almost rapturous climax, Faze transport us to somewhere entirely unexpected.

And Big Upsetter is undoubtedly an album that brims with an innate swing courtesy of a rhythm section that is as bouncingly sprightly as it is fiercely pounding.  Meanwhile, the echo drenched vocals conjure a surrealist tapestry of modern-day frustration as if through a loudhailer, perfectly amplifying the euphoric, otherworldly energy that permeates the six tracks.  The closest proxy I can think of would be the child of an unholy union between S.H.I.T and The Drin.

And amid this groove-laden intensity, stand-out moments abound – from the unhinged velocity of opener Célébration and the cathartic, hi-hat fuelled solo of Wanna Be Good, to the squalling brass finale to the title track.  And, if you’re not soon bellowing out the chorus to the throbbing bass propelled Who Does Your Daddy Sell His Guns To?, you are better person than I.  Who knew bliss could be so bruising?