REVIEW: LITTLE SISTER 'REPERCUSSIONS' (TAPE HAUS/BIG PURPLE)

Little Sister is some scary shit. Little girls in horror usually are, nothing good every comes of a set of pigtails, Regan in the Exorcist, Karen in Night Of The Living Dead, and the twins in The Shining - it's the classic horror trope of innocence subverted. If you can't trust little girls, well, who can you trust? Heavy stuff, eh? 

I've already pissed away a good 80 or so words appearing to make some sort of profound statement about Cleveland blackened hardcore five-piece Little Sister, yet without saying anything at all. You may feel as though this is going somewhere, but it really isn't - and to think you pay about £4.40 for this kind of horsecrap on a monthly basis for whichever mainstream metal rag you throw your lot in with. You really are fantastically stupid.

In fact, go ahead and print out this page and insert your own list here: [




                                                                                       ] because the more of that bullshit I pad this review out with, the less I need to say about the music.

Containing members of Masakari, a reference point we're never too far from in this four-track blast of blackened Motörcrust in the same vague ballpark as Cursed or Antimelodix, Little Sister's 'Repercussions' cassette is limited to 100 (distributed in Europe by Witch Hunter) and streamable below, and seems to be locked in an arm-wrestle with its own vocals, a True Norwegian rasp like a tin of beans being opened.

At odds with the buzzsaw punk and tinny, melodic noodling of the opening track, the awkwardness of the meeting is faintly reminiscent of those sludgier, blackened hardcore bands that Himsa's John Pettibone threw his lot in with when the aforementioned failed to become the new Bleeding Through. It finds its equilibrium in the last few seconds, feeding into the far superior and effortlessly menacing 'Young Invincible' which struts and swaggers through those frost-caked woods, like they're no scarier than the haunted house at Alton Towers.

What with varied combinations of black metal and crust punk being one of the watercress and chocolate flavours of the month in the boutique end of underground music (you know, where people screen print zines in silver ink and 'curate black masses' rather than 'put on shows') it's nice to actually see those chunks of Swedish crust and coppery black metal guitar tone being beaten white hot and forced together over four tracks until the seam is no longer visible in the glare and sparks from the anvil.

So what if it starts gracelessly? Beating metal with a hammer isn't exactly a ballet.