EP REVIEW: Dust To Dust – Year Of The Knife

It has somehow already been over two years since YEAR OF THE KNIFE released their superb album Internal Incarceration. While fans will have been growing impatient for new music, it turns out the Delaware metallic hardcore merchants were too, so they’ve done away with the pomp and circumstance and surprise dropped their blistering new EP Dust To Dust. 

But this is much more than a case of picking up where they left off, as Dust To Dust gives us our first chance to hear them in their new setup. With several line-up changes since their last album that culminated in ex-bassist Madison Watkins taking the mic, YEAR OF THE KNIFE became something of an unknown quantity. The good news is that they waste no time in showing us that they’re still going just as hard as ever – if not harder. 

Taking aim at the topics of impossible societal pressures to be perfect (Ctrl+C), lack of empathy borne of selfish tendencies (Victim) and the pain of loving those who struggle with addiction (Dust To Dust), this EP is a deeply personal release that deals as much in anguished sorrow as it does in cathartic fury. Watkins‘ ferocious and commanding performance brings these feelings violently to the fore, while the rest of the band create an oppressive vortex that crashes down on the listener in brutal waves of jagged riffs and unfathomable noise. Even if you cannot identify with the issues in these three songs, the heart-on-sleeve approach makes you feel as if you’re living each one in the moment. This is an EP that pulls you into YEAR OF THE KNIFE‘s uncompromising world and lets it chew you up and spit you back out.

In the span of just seven minutes, YEAR OF THE KNIFE show just how formidable they continue to be, even in this new iteration. Dust To Dust is an explosion of malice and malcontent, and should keep the blackest hearts amongst us appeased for a while.

Rating: 8/10

Dust To Dust is out now via Pure Noise Records.

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