By their own account, Minneapolis-based Aziza play “Thunderpunk”, combining “sludge, hardcore, and heavy metal”. “We play buttrock for the thinking man’s metal head,” they say. I get where they’re coming from, but I also think they’re understating the exuberant inventiveness on display in their new EP, Council of Straitjackets, which is being released today — and which we’re premiering in this post.
No doubt, the music is heavy — it’s brawny and bruising, venomous and vicious — but it’s also brain-scrambling and occasionally hallucinatory. I had visions of a brutish thug performing a nimble, bounding floor routine at a gymnastics meet while clubbing the competition and then showing his appreciation for the judges by sinking his teeth into their jugulars. Continue reading »
