‘Black mold seeps while I wake from fever dreams, Walls cracked, sink broken in this city full of thieves, All dignity lost while I break my back’ (Scumlord)

Hailing from San Francisco, and featuring members of Everybody Row, Tørsö, and Profile among others, Urban Sprawl have always felt like a band shaped very explicitly by their home city.  Or at least, by that stratum of hyper-financialised ‘global cities’ that have been relentlessly contorted to serve the needs of capital rather than their communities.

They are now back with their third EP, following up 2021’s Concrete Altar, and the savagely growled vocals once again dive into the entrenched inequalities of exploitative rentiers, the hollowing out of gentrification, and the militarised violence that is increasingly riven through US civic society.

The foundations of the band’s sound remain similarly steadfast.  A burly USHC base is interwoven with both d-beat and UK82 influences, before being fiercely moulded through a more metallic crucible.  Each of the six tracks lands with a bone shuddering velocity, with the bass fuelled Scumlord and the stomping fury of Compulsion being my personal highlights.