REVIEW: EVISORAX 'ISLE OF DOGS' (SELF-RELEASED)

Spinning like a bottle to face the crustier end of grindcore, rather than any shrieking u-turn, Northern grinders Evisorax have merely tilted the goals and influences that existed on their 2008 EP 'Enclave' to take in a whole new swathe of aesthetic associations, helpfully backed up by the frantic lines of Womrot's Arif on the cover, art looks in danger of going septic and oozing pus at any second, and the knuckle-whitening, blood-vessel bursting extremity of post-Narcosis noise-manglers The Ergon Carousal, whose drummer Brod and vocalist Chris, have been inducted into the line-up.

You could be cynical, rub your chin, raise your eyebrows and suggest that Evisorax are following the warm Pacific current of hype in the direction of current favourites like Lycanthropy or The Afternoon Gentlemen, but that would be to ignore the how little has really changed, and how little time the band have had in order to contrive any bullshit on the scale following their two-label related fuckgasms and a complete band implosion. Sole surviving member, vocalist/guitarist Dan has always been channelling pure ferocity of early Napalm Death and Brutal Truth, and the pick-up torturing, hand-cramping gymnastics of Pig Destroyer (Scott Hull mastery being testament to that), but what has changed is the focus on the stop-start epileptic fits of songs that the generous would compare to Antigama and the cruel, or stupid, would attribute to Suicide Silence or whatever's currently shit and popular in the world of juddering idiot metal, shifting instead to a more drawn-out powerviolence dirge, dripping with muscle-tensing menace - no mean feat considering the songs, on average, are significantly shorter, to the point where their four-song EP is actually a minute or so longer than their seven-song album.

To say 'matured' to is to denigrate 'Enclave' as anything other than precise and purposeful, which it was - it's no embarrassing early fumble, of which most discographies are made. Instead 'Isle Of Dogs' feels like an old friend somehow changed, eyes ringed with pain and disappointment, following a break-up or a death in the family. You smile and make empty, meaningless conciliatory noises, but you're forever tense, on edge, teeth-gritted and anxious, expecting the mood to turn suddenly venomous when you say the world thing.