The Hyena Kill

Drawn together by a shared love of Queens of the Stone Age, Deftones, Helmet and Tool, Dobb and Blundell announced their arrival in 2012 with the release of the explosive Gush EP, four tracks of searing, coruscating distort-pop which exploded like a nailbomb into the subterranean noise scene. Since then – via’s 2014’s Scrape My Bones EP and two further singles, ‘Suck It Up‘ and last year’s thrilling double-header ‘Still Sick / Blisters‘ – the duo have refined, honed and focussed their fierce alternative rock sound into something harsher, leaner and altogether nastier. The result is Atomised, an unflinching, brutal dissection of what it means to be skint, frustrated, alienated and adrift in modern Britain. From tense, wired recent single ‘Crosses‘ (“Cut it up and sell us cheap, crosses for eyes and sunken cheeks…”) to the sparse, bruised, hypnotic title track (“These broken hearts are never far from where we are…”) via stark, snub-nosed titles such as ‘Your Loss‘, ‘Choke‘ and ‘Erase You‘, it’s a compelling snapshot of a young band over-dosing on volume, adrenaline, distortion and a shared passion for venomous, visceral, breath-stealing rock ‘n’ roll.