Car Bomb
(Demo)
6.9
The good news is that this band’s self titled release is one of the more promising demos I’ve heard in some time. The bad news is that the damn thing is only seven minutes long. But they manage to do a lot of damage in that brief span of time. Take note of the name Car Bomb, as you’ll be hearing more from this unsigned band.
Car Bomb is a four piece from New York that was formed in 2002 by members of Neck and Spooge. They play chaotic rhythmic metal that borrows heavily from math metal behemoths Meshuggah and Dillinger Escape Plan. The expected ensues: thick and jagged stop/go riffing and bizarre time signatures topped with ear shredding shouts and shrieks. When you’ve only got seven minutes to make your point, you can’t be fucking around, and Car Bomb are all about business. No time for solos, and intros are nonexistent or brief. Melody? Almost nowhere to be found. Look for melody, and you’re likely to find it gagged and bound in the corner of Car Bomb’s rehearsal space, bloodied and beaten, with a drumstick plunged through its Rhapsody t-shirt. And maybe that’s for the best, as the most melodic segment of the demo, the clean staccato vocals on “Solid Grey”, is also one of the few missteps the band makes. What is left is a pulverizing lurching heaviness and hardcore urgency. The opening track, “Rid” is a mere 37 seconds of amphetamine driven chaos. “His Eyes” is the most developed song, at four and half minutes in length. There are plenty of tempo shifts and chunky riffing, and some Fantomas-like choppiness and psychotic vocal theatrics. The aforementioned “Solid Grey” closes the EP, and is the most accessible track of the three, as it has a more familiar song structure and includes those clean vocals. It is also the least effective track, as I find the band to be at its best when they are all out shredding. Of course, you get some of that with this song as well, as Car Bomb never stay in the same place for long.
The band is selling this release on their website, and for a measly three bucks you can download the tracks or order the disc. It’s hard to gauge a band on such a short amount of material. It’s not a matter of piecing together what the band is all about, that much is clear. But it will be interesting to see what kind of full release Car Bomb can put together, and whether they can pull off a solid 30 minutes of this stuff. I’d like to hear them try though. These guys show promise, keep an eye on them.
