The Locust - 'New Erections' (Anti) Released 19/03/07

Silence class, stop the tittering. The ‘New Erections’ of which southern Californian hardcore agit punk noise nik veterans The Locust speak, are the concrete and steel carbuncles turning The Golden State into the world’s largest car park. Uncompromising in scope and delivery, ‘New Erections’ is a frenetic and satirical sideways look at senseless consumerism and vacuous celebrity culture.

The band’s longest release to date – its 14 tracks trail in at a whopping 23 minutes – The Locust are like a wasted friend of a friend at a house party. They rock up uninvited, make lots of noise, drink all your beer, throw up everywhere and then pass out.

All the same, chief shouter Justin Pearson’s fridge magnet poetry approach to lyrics offer up some gems among the surreal nonsense. The quartet excel on ‘We Have Reached An Official Verdict: Nobody Gives A Shit’, which sums up their no solution spleen venting ethos; “Belching into the atmosphere, new erections still the same as those filthy ****ing old ones.” Elsewhere, ‘God Wants Us All To Work In Factories’, a bleak manifesto on nine to five drudgery, is dispensed in a two minute primal howl of confusion and nihilism.

Of course, such irreverence shouldn’t be surprising from a band whose past releases include ‘Man Is The Bastard’, ‘Arab on Radar’ and ‘Follow The Flock, Step In Shit’. Fans of Blink 182, Sum 41 et al should look elsewhere, but The Locust’s peculiar, unhinged mix of grindcore and social rebellion might yet find a wider audience among disaffected proles. Proud erections.