ALBUM REVIEW: Find Out – Filth Is Eternal

Seattle crust punks FILTH IS ETERNAL don’t fuck around, despite the title of their latest album Find Out. The outfit have been plugging away in the underground for years, building a reputation for ferocious live shows and a punky snarl that sits somewhere between THE DISTILLERS, D-beat and death metal. Making their label debut with MNRK Heavy, Find Out is a 14 song, sub-30-minute romp loaded with seething melody, a sneering attitude and razor sharp songwriting packed with more hooks than a butcher’s shop. It follows 2021’s excellent Love Is A Lie, Filth Is Eternal and shows a band still firing on all cylinders.

Half Wrong erupts out the gate immediately, barrelling punk and frontperson Lis Di Angelo’s savage bark that veers from pissed off hardcore fury to a more melodic, but no less raging style. It’s followed by lead single Crawl Space, which goes by in a flurry of D-beat and grimy hardcore. It’s as old-school as it comes, but doesn’t sound dated; FILTH IS ETERNAL are adept at bringing that older sound into modernity through their embracing of many different eras of punk and hardcore. Magnetic Point rounds out a battering opening trio that still doesn’t break the five-minute mark in total. 

In other hands it might be breathless, exhausting even, but FILTH IS ETERNAL know exactly what they’re doing. Cherish dials down the tempo to a grooving stomp for some brief respite from the assault, but it’s no less grimy. That layer of filth on top of anthemic punk is electrifying; not only do the band embrace melody in vocals, but the guitars on Cherish, for instance, show a clear understanding of how to get your riffs lodged in people’s ears. While it’s clearly a hardcore record, it’s also obvious that isn’t the only string to their bow. 

The band lean into a myriad of influences, from the crossover thrash meets death metal riffing of Curious Thing, or its almost trad heavy metal squealing solo, or Into the Curve’s rampaging melodic nihilism with flashes of dissonance in the vein of CONVERGE. At this point, we’re barely halfway into the record and while FILTH IS ETERNAL have shown most of their hand, they’ve yet to show it all. The Gate embraces a more rock ‘n’ roll flair without losing any of its edge, while Body Void is pure fist-swinging hardcore pit anthem. 

As Find Out comes into its final songs the band pull even more surprises out – closer Loveless is over three minutes (a prog epic, by their standards) that opens with a riff you could hear EYEHATEGOD playing, all sneering, sludgy plod. A bludgeoning end to an already bruising album, it shows that even without fucking around, FILTH IS ETERNAL truly found out exactly what best makes them tick as a band, embracing the relationship they have with fans and with live shows. The end result is 14 songs of crusty, filthy metallic hardcore that are simply too good to ignore. 

Rating: 8/10

Find Out is set for release on September 29th via MNRK Heavy.

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