It's no secret I'm a big fan of Canada's Dead Again… I raved about their debut album from 2013 Occultus Lake and I'm back again to announce their new EP Space Basement is just as good.
Space Basement wastes no time in getting down to business considering the second you hit play, you're instantly hit with a jagged, churning guitar riff and d-beat drums that only pave the way for crushing vocals to be laid overtop. While the first half of the song keeps stirring that maniacal concoction of violence, the second half takes everything you've heard and reduces it down to just a few notes and a simplified breakdown groove that seems to pick up momentum slowly throughout its brief existence. The song serves as a perfect introduction to "Our Lord and Butcher," which follows a similar and shorter structure as "Space Basement" did.
Putting two songs back to back with a similar structure isn't necessarily a bad thing. It serves as this crusty, rotting yin-and-yang type of flow that contrasts riffs and ideas enough in a short period of time that nobody in their right mind could claim they're bored. Y'know, except both the yin and the yang are covered in gore and dripping blood all over the damn floor.
So let's say hypothetically "Space Basement" and "Our Lord and Butcher" are violent, bloody homicides with knives and brass knuckles and all that good, clean fun. Just really quick murders, right? Then the last track off Space Basement titled "Blood Rites" is a brutal, slow, agonizing death by crushing. The song never once decides to pick up the pace or maybe even throw something quicker in there just to speed up the process. For almost four minutes, you're being slowly suffocated and crushed by the weights Dead Again are dropping on you.
Space Basement is grotesque. Space Basement is the product of a band that knows how to create an absolutely filthy, distorted, grimy sound that never once sounds incoherent or lost in itself. If Dead Again weren't on your musical radar by now then your radar needs an update, because as far as EPs go in 2014, Space Basement is by far one of the best.
