ALBUM REVIEW: …To be alive at the end of the world – Total Fucking Destruction

Everyone likes a bit of mindless fun. Whether coming from some frantic riff led chaos that doesn’t put too much thought into the output or even just a Micheal Bay explosion extravaganza that does to stories what a drunk man does to a kebab at 3am. But then there is the mindless that lacks even entertainment value for the sake of trying to push the boat out. A lot of the most extreme noise out there falls into the final category, becoming utterly devoid of creativity and value and becoming almost a badge of honour for someone to say they actually enjoy listening to it. TOTAL FUCKING DESTRUCTION have never been ones to offer concise deconstructions of political systems or the like, but in the past they have raged against the proverbial machine with a crust punk fist that had the all important drive most look for when it comes to music like this. Pounding drums and fast riffs all caught up in a shouty mess. A fun mess, albeit. However, the band’s latest effort …To Be Alive at the End of the World is, in no uncertain terms, an utter trainwreck of an album that takes any semblance of quality found off of their previous release, of which there was ample, and throws it so far out the window there is little point trying to salvage anything.

The opening post-rock desert atmospheres are strange and overstay their welcome by about 3 minutes. Repeating the title of the album as its only lyric, the song goes nowhere as it slowly builds to a disappointing crescendo and ending, signalling for the next eight songs to come and go in under about what feels like five minutes. Violently High is a 50 second buzzsaw that shows glimpses of previous success but ultimately chases its own tail for its duration. Tracks like Demonstration of Power sound like bad PRIMUS offcuts and Sound on Sound is a totally unwelcome, bad summer pop song wedged into the record for reasons, apparently. 

With most songs falling under a minute in length and the album only being 10 songs long, it does beg the question as to how little effort has actually gone into this record. At least when ANAL CUNT wrote short songs they gave us 40 of them. Tracks like Doctor Butcher have potential as well, but the total lack of care just makes it a 40 second song demo that feels unfinished and barely started. And then there’s Yelling at Velcro, which is barely even worth the time talking about. Nothing flows like you would expect a record should, and the consistency of ideas and musical themes is so errattic it’s baffling. 

Mercifully this record does come to its final track rapidly thanks to its total lack of substance and care. However, the final track is a pretty humourous butchering of the American national anthem that is funny for about 10 seconds before becoming utterly unbearable. Being swiftly followed by nine long minutes of silence and with a shit surprise at the end, you begin to feel bad for any poor sap who actually spent money on a physical copy of this record. This is, by all accounts, a comprehensible nothingburger of an album, and you should probably not listen to it. Go listen to Usa4tfd instead. 

Rating: 1/10  

…To Be Alive at the End of the World is out now via Translation Loss Records. 

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