I dare you to play a Destruction Unit album quietly. 2013’s effort, ‘Deep Trip’ was the sort of full on assault that leaves you pinned to the back wall screaming for more; and it sounds like the band’s new Sacred Bones album, ‘Negative Feedback Resistor’ might just have upped the game even further This is a album that has full-on written all over it. Combining stunning speed freakery, pummelling rhythms which change up and down to stunning effect. It is an album that proclaims that you should not, under absolutely any circumstance, let there bastards grind you down. Destruction Unit are one of those great bands who have attitude, skill and brains; none of which they make any effort in hiding.
As I prepared for the onslaught I wondered how the band would come across on a relatively big stage, because this is music that normally lends itself to the intense claustrophobia of a small venue. I need not have worried because Destruction Unit absolutely nailed it, and were for me THE band of the first day of the festival. Playing at full tilt from the outset the band absolutely ripped into a set that totally blew me away with its intensity and venom. Imagine The Stooges put through a prism of Sonic Youth and Black Flag; and with the political nous of Jello Biafra; then made heavier and fastest and you just might begin to imagine what this band are like. Yet even live Destruction Unit are not heavy for heavy’s sake, there is a great deal of thought and nuance going on in there with some underlying motorik beats and space rock drone on the side. This is a band who you really have to listen to and resist the temptation just to be pummelled by (although that’s a great thing too).
After this performance I have fallen for Destruction Unit in a big way, they take me back to my punk days but with an authentic and contemporary worldview unlike many so-called punk bands these days. Brilliant!
You can find my other writing for Backseat Mafia here, including reports from this year’s Liverpool PsychFest.
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