Targeted Solution is the debut album from Calgary’s Grotto.  Fast and tight, gnarly and twisting, yet also densely textured and drenched in a suffocating, desperate urgency.

For all its intrinsic directness, it evokes a fiercely claustrophobic atmosphere, one that pulses with unease and anxiety.  The cleanish guitars are tense and taut but certainly don’t lack for muscularity.  The flourishes of discordant melody, which often emerge almost as palate cleansing interludes, are powerfully effective.  Hauntingly evocative, they also serve to deftly amplify the intensity of the wider onslaught.

The rhythm section maintains a fluid suppleness amid the frenzy, while the caustically enraged vocals rabidly dissect our fever dream of paranoid delusions, wilfully distorted realities, and institutionalised double speak.  From the manic opening of Thermally Annihilated, the battery is an unforgiving one, as it careers from the searing contortions of Lead Me (To Paradise) to the dissonance laced title track, by way of the frenetic grooves of Black Imp.

The result is feral and feverish in equal measure.  Imagine, perhaps, the abrasive viscosity of Memory Ward or Second Death fused with a more avowedly burly 1980s’ USHC influence and you won’t be too far wide of the mark.