EP REVIEW: Where Life Crisis Starts – Industrial Puke

Even laying aside the small manner of the COVID-19 pandemic, it’s taken INDUSTRIAL PUKE long enough to get some music out. Birthed in the mind of guitarist/vocalist Jens Ekelin way back in 2017, the now five-piece have spent the past five years or so finding members, honing in on a sound, and finally, writing and recording their debut EP Where Life Crisis Starts. Out this Friday via Gothenburg’s Suicide Records, this somewhat overdue release offers a fleeting glimpse of what one might expect from the band’s debut album planned for sometime next year.

When we say glimpse, we mean it. Where Life Crisis Starts is a short, sharp release that clocks in at just under eight minutes all told. It’s also clear as soon as the band launch into opener Mental Taxation that we’ve been here plenty of times before. Intentionally doing away with frills or fancies in favour of a straightforward and urgent violence, what INDUSTRIAL PUKE deliver here is essentially a crust-caked concoction of death metal and hardcore that tears past its listeners with a blink and you’ll miss it fury. HM-2-soaked guitars, rumbling distorted bass, relentless drums, and harsh, hawkish vocals – none of this should come as a huge surprise to anybody, but like an old friend who smells a little worse than you’d dare admit to them, it’s easier just to sink into this comfortingly crusty embrace.

Somewhat predictably then, the rest of the EP doesn’t do much at all to deviate from the course established on Mental Taxation. If anything it seems to grow only more furious from there, raging through the driving blast beats and bouncy riffs of Banished and the D-beaty highlight of Constant Pressure to end on a blistering 80-second closer named after the band themselves. “Industrial puke / Is what you’ve been served” it concludes, and we couldn’t put it any better ourselves.

And that’s it really. Where Life Crisis Starts is so singular in its focus that it somehow feels even shorter than its already incredibly tight runtime. To be honest, that’s sort of a pro and a con at the same time. On the one hand this is a record that’ll get you fired up in a heartbeat, and one that’s easy to keep coming back to. On the other however, one does wonder if the full-length promised for next year will render this somewhat obsolete if that album manages to deliver a more fulsome statement of violent intent.

Rating: 7/10

Where Life Crisis Starts is set for release on September 16th via Suicide Records.

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