To Call Los Angeles grindcore band ACxDC uncompromising would be something of an understatement. For 21 years they’ve been demolishing stages and stereos with their brutal sound, and to celebrate this milestone they return with their second album for Prosthetic Records, the modestly-titled G.O.A.T., (that’s Greatest Of All Time). As you’d expect from a band who’ve been in the game for two decades, G.O.A.T. is a brutal affair, and one that takes no prisoners.
ACxDC (Antichrist Demoncore) aren’t known for their subtlety, and woe betide those not paying attention because opening track ‘Wanna See A Dead Body?’ appears like a bullet heading towards your forehead. There’s no time for fancy introductions or elongated preliminaries, just a thunderous drum roll and some throat-shredding vocals, and ACxDC are off. The fact that it arrives from nowhere makes it all the more powerful and it speeds by in sixty-five succinct seconds. It’s a ferocious sound that comes out with all fists flying; as with the rest of the album, it’s a lean fighter that’s ripped and torn and with not an ounce of excess of fat. ACxDC are the ultimate editors and distil each song into its purest form until all that’s left is unbridled rage. G.O.A.T. seethes with an anger that most modern music lacks and ACxDC are here to disperse the young pretenders like a bowling ball ploughing through ten pins.
For their latest release, ACxDC have dug deep into the well of personal despair for inspiration and it has resulted in a darker effort that their previous full-length (2020’s Satan Is King). Failure, self doubt and imposter syndrome are themes that echo throughout and it has resulted in a dark, disconcerting and disturbing album. Tracks such as ‘Definition Of Insanity’ and ‘Flying Pigs’ are akin to being locked in a room with the world’s most depraved serial killer as he sharpens the tools of the trade. Yet, for all their visceral ferocity, ACxDC never lose sight of melody, and there’s a real swing underpinning these songs, like the best American Hardcore, these are songs you can fight and dance to (possibly at the same time), meaning that the likes of ‘Karoshi’ are sure to set venues alight wherever they’re unleashed. However, if that all sounds a tad serious the band’s biting sarcasm is still present, only it’s pushed back in favour of sonic terrorism.
Powerviolence, hardcore, death and punk, ACxDC are a potent blend of all these extreme styles, blended to perfection by four alchemists and they have indeed produced an album that is the Greatest Of All Time.
- G.O.A.T. is released via Prosthetic Records on 26th April 2024.
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Track List:
- Wanna See A Dead Body?
- Boxed In
- Clout Chaser
- Greatest Of All Time
- Mortality Salience
- At Midnight
- Into The Void
- Definition Of Insanity
- Fairweather
- Thot Police
- Flying Pigs
- Inside Joke
- Vested Interest
- Karoshi
- Feed The Blade
- Goatcore
- Expired
