Album Details

• Artist: Fistula
• EP:
Goat
• Label: Crucial Blast
• Year of Release: 2010
• ME Rating:
• Reviewed by: patchen on 2010-07-12

In answer to your recent prayers for a concept EP based on Ohio serial killer Anthony Sowell, Fistual arrive with your goods. "Goat" is a slow, strangling swipe of sludge with more than the occasional burst of thrashy exclamation. The concept is more alluded to that directly coherent, but that hardly matters given the sonic beating to which the listener will willingly submit from these five bruising tracks.

"Ohio Death Toll Rising" begins with metallic drums, smothered vocals and a grinding mega-riff that briefly speeds up to a pummeling pace before returning to the slower theme. This is claustrophobic and sinister sludge.

"One Chair And An Electrical Cord" thrashes violently and is brief as the hardcore it resembles. Likewise, "So Far Sowell So What"-which is the key track-features  a smackdown riff straight outta Thrash History 101. It would have been a great ending.

The finale, "Mission Accomplished", complete with nightly news sound bites and single, hypnotic riff, sounds added on, as if the band needed something overt to pull the concept together. Even without the spotlight sort of on the minor serial killer, enough terror was delivered  previously to ensure disturbance.

Whether by exploring slower than a glacier riffs or whiplash chord blizzards, Akron's ioFistula deliver the greasy goods with menace and grit. If the idea behind "Goat" doesn't sustain, it doesn't matter. This is top shelf, harrowing voodoo.

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