The time is upon us. The Hanged Man is here.
Louisville, KY grinding/hardcore/powerviolence/noisy unit Pissed On are dropping their new EP. And this thing is psychotic.
The Hanged Man is a five-song offering that is all teeth. From the first scream, Pissed On sound like they’re on a warpath. The opener “Reader” blasts with impunity. But it quickly doesn’t go in the direction you’d expect. Yeah, it sounds like a typical grindcore introduction but it’s not. This is violence. They bring the heavy mosh immediately following the blast, throwing you in the way that powerviolence does.
What’s apparent here is that Pissed On isn’t concerned with imitation. Do they channel aspects of Pig Destroyer, Full of Hell or Discordance Axis? Yes, but they’re not working off any of the bands’ blueprints. It's molded in their image. And they don't stop there. It’s not hard to pick out some Swans Filth-era influence (see: “The Hanged Man”). Or the strong coat of sludge that's lathered throughout (see: “Shriveled Minds”).
They blend, and they do so incredibly well. The Hanged Man is more of an experience than a collection of songs. Individually it is fantastic. Tracks bounce from skin peeling to moody to noisy, cohesively. Sometimes it feels like one massive, intense ten-minute track.
Lyrically the album is a nihilistic narrative following a man’s final days. A warning of purposelessness while sometimes reveling in death. And concerning the Tarot description it’s fitting. Working off Aleister Crowley’s The Book of Thoth: “…[i]t represents the spiritual function of water in the economy of initiation; it is a baptism which is also death.”
The Hanged Man is here. Behold. Indulge. Destroy.
