ALBUM REVIEW: Domestic Extremity – Scalp

It’s easy to feel spoilt for choice when it comes to nasty metallic hardcore these days. Year after year, bands seem to produce records which grow more oppressive, more abrasive, and more straight-up horrible every time. Domestic Extremity, the debut album from metallic hardcore quartet SCALP, is another such record. On it, the band blend elements of hardcore, death metal and grindcore into a visceral, violent melting pot. It’s a chaotic combination that sees them join bands like CULT LEADER, FULL OF HELL and NAILS on the most savage end of the hardcore spectrum.

SCALP definitely start as they mean to go on on Domestic Extremity. The album opens with the vicious one two punch of No Hope and Indigent Botulin. Both songs are very short – one minute and 58 seconds respectively – but they still manage to go to so many extreme places. With squealing feedback, sludgy riffing and manic changing tempos, it’s an intense, bewildering opening to a record which stays that way throughout. They also quickly mark out vocalist Cole Rodgers as a versatile performer. Throughout Domestic Extremity, he flits from abrasive high screams to brutal low gutturals. He may be pretty difficult to understand, but there’s no question he’s a good match to SCALP’s bleak, oppressive sound.

After this, the slightly longer third track Bastard Land offers an early highlight. In keeping with those that came before, it’s crushingly heavy, and veers all over the place at a breakneck pace. This time around however it offers listeners a little more to grab onto, with a bouncy verse riff and a particularly punishing downtempo breakdown. Lyrically, the song sets its sights on the police, with Rodgers delivering hate-filled lines like “Your blue life doesn’t matter” and “No love for a bastard or a pig.” The police are one of several targets on Domestic Extremity. Elsewhere, the band direct their hatred towards white supremacists, gun lovers, Christians and rapists. Also, to give an idea of just how dark this record is, Bastard Land ends with a sample of the voice of convicted killer Nikko Jenkins.

Fifth track Crouched is another highlight. It’s a bludgeoning noisy song, again full to the brim with ever-changing tempos and ideas. It’s final minute sees SCALP drop to a glacially slow, sludgy section, reminiscent of the likes of GAZA. In the background, listeners can hear what can only be described as a tortured howling. It’s unclear if this is a sample or effect, or Rodgers’ vocals. Either way it’s utterly harrowing.

Another stand-out is the record’s eighth track – named after the band themselves. It isn’t a massive shift from the chaotic violence of the rest of the record, but this time features guest vocals from Thqms of No Time Records. His vocals add a fresh but still abrasive layer to the band’s sound. His contribution even helps SCALP draw comparisons to US metalcore pioneers BOTCH.

Scalp isn’t the only time the band evoke that more classic era of metalcore. It’s difficult to talk about sludgy chaotic music like this without at least mentioning COALESCE. As well as this, SCALP’s regular forays into feedback and dissonance also often bring to mind CONVERGE at their most downright nasty. The band also throw in their fair share of swaggering, stompy death metal-esque riffs. This is most obvious on the album’s ninth track, Stabbed Until Unrecognized, but seventh track Flesh Fed and album closer Depleted Mass definitely deserve mentions as well.

It feels an unwritten rule that albums this consistently abrasive shouldn’t be more than half an hour long. At 22 minutes, Domestic Extremity comfortably avoids that, and it’s all the better for it. SCALP are clearly a band who know what they want to do. They get in, get it done, and get out. It might not win many prizes for originality, but that doesn’t stop this from being a record that’s sure to go down well with anyone looking for that particularly sadistic strand of hardcore.

Rating: 8/10

Domestic Extremity is out now via Creator-Destructor Records.

Follow SCALP on Bandcamp.