City of Industry – Spiritual West
Release Date: 11th October 2022
Label: No Funeral Records / Modern Grievance
Bandcamp
Genre: Metallic Hardcore, Noise Rock, Dark Ambient.
FFO: Loathe, Birds in Row, Converge, Show Me The Body.
Review By: Joe McKenna
Emerging from the wreckage of a not-so-distant dystopian future, Seattle hardcore contemporaries City of Industry push their refined brand of metallic hardcore with vigorous and intense momentum. The trio’s volatile sound contains elements of pure, compelling, and raw material that creates a destructive and near-apocalyptic sense of bleakness that acts as a distress signal against the declining state of our decaying, urbanised world.
In 2020 made their mark with the incredibly poignant debut False Flowers, abandoning the traditions associated with many artists in the hardcore scene, instead looking to structure songs that come from a place of pure emotion and desire. Vocalist John Caraveo undertakes such practices to their fullest extent, operating as an outsider to the scene by means of generating sounds and words that feel raw in a brutally authentic statement; “I don’t want to fit in or seek the ‘scene’s’ approval in any way. I want to be myself, all the time, one hundred percent. Unapologetic aggression. Knowing I can be myself and be honest and sleep well at night.” City of Industry’s latest album Spiritual West further pushes these unique and abrasive characteristics, carving out new sonic territories in such an experimentally real way.
With 12 brutally aggravated tracks that make up this album, each one creates a uniquely dark and nihilistic sound that contributes to its overall hostile mood. Whilst for the most part this is a hardcore album with a metallic edge, there is a certain diversion in style which makes this record stand apart from others in the world of hardcore. For example, the noise rock inspired soundscapes that are plagued throughout the record make things almost uncomfortable to fathom for the listener; this is joined by other radical sonic elements such as brooding synths, terrifying church bells, glockenspiel chimes, and confrontational voice samples all do their bit to offer some contrast to each of these tracks.
Regarding stand out tracks, this album opens with Caraveo cementing his outsider status in a spoken word passage which reads “I am not completely like other people, people dislike me because I am not completely like them” this is the beginning of the impulsive first song Chalk This Up To Assault a brutal track in which we are introduced to the band’s hot-headed approach to heaviness. Other songs early on showcase this ruthless display of aggression in the music, Ships of Mercy is a good example of this dissonant and intense mood, notably the vigorous d-beat style drum rhythms and agonising vocals. This vocal trait is also a distinctive feature in this dark ambient title track Spiritual West, you can hear Canavero spitting his lungs out with emotive force over this ominous dark synth passage in an attempt to bridge the tracks together. Following on, from like Death Sickness and Dissociation allows the full band to really utilise their sonic ground more dynamically, it’s so intermittently raw from Caraveo’s poignant spoken work passages whilst bassist Jack Thompson thumps out these viscous riffs to the thunderous beats of drummer Pablo Lara.
The latter half of the album follows this emotionally direct form of musical aggression, making use heavily of more unconventional ambient synth drones and chimes to increase this intimidating, dystopian atmosphere. Despite Loving Efforts and Everybody’s Cross These Days, Darling are emotionally dissident songs that offer a more expressive perspective from the artists and the lyrics contain some of the most powerfully philosophical and poetic craftmanship that allows us to interpret both an interpersonal connection with Caraveo’s individual experiences as well as a broader statement against the backdrop of a broken society. The final tracks He Condescends to Glide and In Cloud, Majesty, And Awe amp up the dissonant rage bringing this album to a disruptive, yet effective, climax.
(4.5 / 5)
