‘Your cost of living has a price of human suffering, Your quality of life is paid for with human misery…The empire declines, the system’s a failure, you need someone to blame’ (Punishment)

Having cut their teeth on two bruising EPs, 2023’s World Of Hate and last year’s Time To Die, Portland’s Alienator return with a debut full-length that is as utterly uncompromising as you would expect.  Pit provoking breakdowns, piercing divebombs, squalling solos, and muscular group vocals are all fused together into a fierce, barrelling battery that neither seeks nor offers even a hint of mercy.

The highlights come thick and fast from the pulverising climax to the opener, Alienator to the stomping groove of What’s Inside, by way of the surging riff that defines the title track.  Meanwhile, the gutturally roared vocals continue to focus on the seething hatred that the state of the world induces.  This rage steers clear of outright nihilism and is alert to not being sucked into a self-destructive spiral.  Rather it is framed as a positive force to be harnessed – only by recognising a system that entrenches privilege and scapegoats the disadvantaged can we confront and disrupt it.