‘Craving blood, down to abuse, Electric vultures, eyes on the noose, Marching soldiers, evil beat, Starving war dogs, looking for meat, Licking the boot, of the elite’ (Concrete Nightmare)

A glitch is, of course, a minor, temporary malfunction.  It’s fair to say that as Lille’s Gutter, who feature members of Utopie, barrel forward through our current social malaise, they feel that something rather more fundamental has gone awry – we’re not so much glitching as plunging into terminal meltdown.

This is the band’s third release, and follow-up to 2020’s Simulation 7-inch.  They continue to favour a lean, burly hardcore punk. The muscular riffage, wailing solos, and gruff, echo drenched vocals are interwoven with a healthy dose of rhythmic rock’n’roll strut together with a rich seam of mournful melodicism.

The fundamentally no-nonsense delivery is also textured with some well-judged detailing, including the brass fuelled intro and shards of tinkling piano.  From the bruising Infected to the swaggering Concrete Nightmare, by way of the barging Stranded, this is the sound of a world suffocating in the tentacles of surveillance capitalism.

The album captures a prevailing sense of us being trapped between a virtual world and reality, knowing that it is fracturing our sense of self, but unable to break free.  The increasing disposability of both our material and cultural lives and the polarising echo chambers that pollute the social discourse are captured in the rather natty accompanying lyric booklet.