The Locust - New Erections (Anti)
4/5
By: Thomas Hannan
Now, I refuse to believe that The Locust are anything other than outright, unashamed, undiluted fun. Yes, they're playing ridiculously loud, fast and heavy music, and shouting a lot, but isn't it more fun to shout than it is to talk at a normal volume? And trust me, the best thing about playing the guitar is playing the guitar really bloody fast, and very loud. Listen to those krayzee keyboard noises on unpronounceable opener 'Aotkpta' - that, my friend, is the sound of some people who enjoy things like walks in meadows and lollipops, getting pissed in the sunshine with their mates, not just the mindless slaughter of the innocence. Your lad might be singing "we'll bury the city in trash!", but he don't mean it. He's dressed as a f**king insect. Really, grindcore has had a moody reputation for far too long.
As usual, the playing on this is incredible - it's a Locust record after all. But it's a heck of a lot cleaner than you'll be used to from their past records - notes are easily recognisable as existing on some kind of scale rather than just being grating, curious timbres of noise. Lyrics can even be made out at least a good sixty percent of the time. Bloody sellouts.
Hopefully you're with us on the point that being in The Locust, dressing up as an insect with your mates and playing ludicrously fast, is one hell of a giggle. It is. But don't you go away thinking we're calling this lot frivolous, hedonist thrill seekers and nothing more. The Locust take this racket very seriously indeed, and for that reason, you can consider it as serious music yourself. If they were just messing around, you wouldn't be able to listen to this with a straight face. But they're far, far better than that. And despite the cartoon nature of parts of it, there are even parts where you can pick out lyrics that suggest the band are singing about some pretty deep, interesting stuff. "Entire countries without running water or food", they growl on 'Full Frontal Obscurity', for example. This is fun with a real purpose. It's punk f**king rock, that's what it is.
Still, they remain at their best when their 'songs', or musical spasms, are very short, no better than on the nihilistic 'We Have Reached an Official Verdict: Nobody Gives A Shit'. Only three tracks here break the two minute mark, and the whole thing lasts for a mere 23 minutes. But, and you should keep this in mind at all times, for the Locust, that makes it almost an epic.
The jaunty and succinct moments that pepper 'New Erections' (the words 'pepper' and 'erections' in the same sentence are making me somewhat uncomfortable) make it really rather easy to listen to for something of its kind, but it's the longer songs here that provide the real moments of intrigue. They give the Locust's billions of ideas, usually condensed in to one short sonic sneeze, real time to develop. When they slow the pace down, as on 'The Unwilling...Led By the Unqualified...Doing the Unnecessary...For the Ungrateful' the fun goes out the window momentarily and the band actually sound genuinely scary, and not playful at all. They're scariest - and slowest - however on 'Scavenger Invader', but that only lasts for a minute and fifteen seconds despite its lack of frantic pace. Oh well, there's my theory gone.
With experimental moments such as those, 'New Erections' should be seen as the sound of an already very 'out there' band trying to surpass even their own far our boundaries. The great thing about their fan base is that to count yourself as a Locust fan in the first place, you've got to be one pretty open minded fellow (as if girls like the Locust!), so the band can rest safe in the knowledge that their followers will be there right behind them wherever they wander - even if that does mean stumbling in to weird dub like soundscapes as on the end of 'Hot Tubs of Brand New Fuel', or songs that last, gasp, four and a half freakin' minutes! We're talking here about 'Black Bot' which sounds like a 'conventional' Locust opus actually stretched for about five times its expected length, but played with as much vigour and volume (forget your volume dial - whatever it says, this is a loud record) as you'd normally demand from one of their shorter efforts, followed by one long and nigh on unbearably piercing electronic screech and a slow, doom laden riff.
You'll have gathered that the band are good with titles, but these certainly aren't their funniest - there's nothing to rival 'Priest with the Sexually Transmitted Diseases, Get Our of my Bed!' here. However, it just makes you think that they might not have been joking about all that stuff in the first place. And that would be really terrifying. So we won't even consider it - on we go to 'God Wants us All To Work In Factories', a classic Locust title, and the sound of classic Locust - relentless grinding, thudding on your ears, all over in the blink of an eye. It's the band showing that they can still play faster, better and more disgustingly than anyone else despite growing up. A little bit.
Stream 'We Have Reached and Official Verdict: Nobody Gives a Shit' from 'New Erections' HERE
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