It seems like noise punk is making a resurgence lately as the '90s punk scene is getting more and more press and more people are starting to care about bands like Born Against and Man Is the Bastard again. Taylor Bow have been working at this sound for a couple of years now and have now presented us with their first full-length.

The band separates themselves from their noise-core peers by adhering to a strict punk make-up. Their music is free of synthesizers or other digital effects and stops short of other gimmicks a lot of bands in the genre use to distinguish themselves. The "noise" part of this record is just that -- "noise" that is merely a by-product of the natural occurrence of sound. The basic setup of drums, vocals, guitar and bass seems to limit the band, but in their minimalist aesthetic they find themselves.

Comparing them to their shoegaze-y counterparts that have toyed with the repeated-riff idea (Fucked Up comes to mind) seems irrelevant because the focus seems totally different. If there was one band I could compare them to, it would be the Homopolice, but earlier tones like the Melvins or even the Velvet Underground work, though all seem irrelevent. It's like late-era Black Flag going back 10 years to record with an early incarnation of the Germs and being conducted by John Cale.

The album lures the listener into a false sense of security before dropping into split seconds of thrash that appear on songs like "Woke on Midnight." "Massive City Rolling" has an almost black metal feel, while the band seems to hit their stride during songs like "Pure Now," which throws back into a hardcore sound that resembles DICKS-esque structuring, but all the pieces of familiarity eventually (if not immediately) crumble to the driving, drone-y sound the band has cultivated. The intentional lo-fi sound creates an abrasive atmosphere most bands only mention in interviews without ever being able to truly cultivate it on record.