Dustheads

Dustheads called it a day last year with this, their final release, the seven-song Little Pieces 12" EP. It features the same songs that appeared on their 2007 compilation CD, Collected Sounds, except reworked (read: improved) and the order reshuffled.

Little Pieces is essentially a logical extension of the Tall Tales 7"s, bringing forth more `80s-inspired rock'n'roll-borne hardcore, only with better structure and more ambition. The vocals are more comprehensible, but the self-loathing and hatred is certainly still there, as well as an almost-constant flair of up-tempo bravado. Declaring the banality of your own existence was never so much fun.

The most surprising moment comes when Side B kicks off with a layered, noisy wave of distortion that sounds like it escaped No Age's recording space before delving into a prolonged instrumental buildup á la Fucked Up. I highly doubt Dustheads intended to cop the Pitchfork Heroes of '08 with this one, but it does sound similar. In any event, it's a pleasantly surprising interlude.

A fairly excellent swan song for one of Brooklyn's better hardcore acts of recent times.

Mules