Surroundings

While everyone else was listening to Nails and getting a boner out of it, i was listening to this. Surroundings play their own interpretation of hardcore: lightning fast, heavy and slow, down-tuned riffage, distortion and ear-piercing feedback and heartfelt screams/yells. Calling them powerviolence won't do them justice, neither are they a Mind Eraser rip-off. They have this southern sludge introspective nihilistic element. The lyrics are harsh and tell us that this world and what man made out of it is just a huge pile of shit, the songs are short and grinding. When you expect it the least Surroundings will turn around the song structure and let the song fall apart in a gritty way. Then you have deal with an unpredictable feedback-infested muddy slowpaced swamp and the notes keep dragging and dragging. While most (let's call them evil, depressived, dark) bands stick to a well-ridden dark and depressed formula: Let's just play real slooooow and let nothing else happen and bore the shit out of everyone, Surroundings present a different approach with the sheer rage, compressed negativity and the brick to your face.

The guy has a voice that I envy and I jealously wish was my own. He has a great feeling when it comes down to place the words and how to fit them in. Most vocalists don't understand that their voice is an immanent element of a band, another instrument to be taken care of, another piece to keep it all together and they give the sound their own gritty character. Surroundings know how to do it and how to do it right. One of the best underrated albums of 2010 in my opinion.

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