EP REVIEW: Life And Death In The Wasteland – Crashface
Being a name on everyone’s lips throughout the first half of the 2020s, British outfit CRASHFACE have brought more bang and boom to their discography with their latest EP Life And Death In The Wasteland.
An appropriate follow-up to their 2023 EP Prototype, the dynamic duo have been all work and all play throughout the last two years. If they weren’t in the studio making hits, they were playing them live night after night at their own headline shows and highly anticipated festival appearances. One track that has been a major release from this upcoming record is Maniac, featuring WARGASM co-frontperson Sam Matlock. A track that is a home-away-from-home for Matlock, the collaboration is electrifying and terrifying – thrills and chills being sent down the guitar neck, and power bursting through the battling vocals. It’s very easy to see this being a crowd-pleaser in a busy nightclub venue – with bruised skin and sore bones galore in its war path. For one song out of a combined five on the EP, if that is the first bite, people will be returning for the full course meal.
C.H.A.I.N.S.A.W is another standout on this careful selection of compositions, as it comes second track in while the listener is still adjusting to this storm brewing between the ears and within the brain. With one of the catchier choruses found in CRASHFACE’s discography, it will be caught up and fly around the mind for days, possibly weeks to come. It’s heavy rock sorcery, and no one cares about being entranced. They just want more, and more, and CRASHFACE are ready to give more. With a revitalised alternative rock movement in the UK and beyond currently underway, CRASHFACE are taking full advantage and running to the front of the march.
Ending on the four-minute Surrender Lessons, this closes a chapter but opens a whole new story for the two-piece in this industry. As mentioned before, this is a band who have been non-stop in music since they shot to fame. No rest for the wicked, as they say, and it pays off. CRASHFACE are ready to take off for the galaxy, after reaching the stars above. There is nowhere too far, no bound unreachable, and with Life And Death In The Wasteland, it feels like they’re embracing this and working towards going down in history along with going up in the charts.
The future is impossible to predict, especially with the ever-shifting environment of the alternative scene. However, if this five-track festival is anything to go by, CRASHFACE are going to be safe and sound with whatever the future throws at them.
Rating: 8/10
Life And Death In The Wasteland is out now via self-release.
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