‘The ceiling is peeling, Is peeling, And we’re both disappearing, Paint chips in my hair like, Fallen Stars, fallen stars’ (Paints Peeling)

Distortion is something beautiful.  That said, one of the undoubted pleasures derived from those bands that chose to shed its delights, is that the vivid integrity of every moving part of their sound that is revealed by its absence.  The bristling, no wave accented punk of Philadelphia’s Eraser on their debut album, Hideout, is a perfect example.

Precise motorik beats and thrumming bass lines form the backbone, while jagged shards of guitar and tantalisingly just short of jarring synths seem unsure of whether to wrestle or collaborate with one another.  What emerges is both anxiously claustrophobic and abrasively confrontational, yet also imbued with a tautly coiled, ineffably danceable energy that draws on the same spikily synth fuelled fervour as Es and Hekátē.

The emotionally cold, disdainfully detached vocals provide an engagingly insidious counterpoint as they sharply deconstruct everything from social platitudes to predatory behaviours and the horrors of Gaza.  The agitated oscillations of Paints Peeling and the deliciously unhinged Dinner Roll are my personal highlights.