‘Poverty and violence will keep us in line, The earth’s like a bloated corpse, Covered in flies, Civilisation burning up in front of your eyes’ (Crucified Minds)

People’s lives are saturated in an unsettling discordance.  It is one born of a society slowly cannibalising itself.  Hollowed out by austerity economics, entrenched in inequality, and mired in state sanctioned violence.  Flags Are False is the debut album from Acid Casualties and follow up to their 2021 demo, Victims Of Psychick War.  It seethes with a bristling antagonism toward those responsible for this malaise as it unleashes a truly unhinged onslaught that brings the rabid frenzy and the burly stomp to bear with equal relish.

Hailing from New Jersey, Acid Casualties derive their name with pride from a track, Acid Casualty, by early 1980s’ Knoxville hardcore outfit KORO.  Then, they take this influence and ramp it up to an almost overwhelming level of intensity.  The rhythm section locks-in with a frenetic ferocity, propelling forward the blistering waves of scuzzily fuzzed out riffage, all bathed in lacerating feedback that seemingly pulses with a serpentine life all of its own.

Meanwhile, the frantic, desperation drenched vocals confront the self-serving interests that seem intent on gorging themselves at the trough as the world burns.  The highlights slam home with a relentless velocity. The fevered escalation of Why Decide?. The venomous convulsions of Crucified Minds.  The searing riff that defines Southern Cross is utterly insane.  The louche swagger of Officer Down.  In short, this is an absolute scorcher.