2018 has created (or perhaps revealed) something of a half-opened Pandora’s Box, with new, unthinkable atrocities leaking out every goddamned day. And while an unfortunately vast majority attempts to ignore our sorry state, and continues on in superficial conversations about diets and vacations and coffee humor, New York City horror-punk outfit Conduit face it head-on, in their single, “To The Tower,” the first off their debut LP titled, Drowning World, out September 3 via Kitschy Spirit Records.
To say in advance that the quartet features members of Twin Stumps, Pop. 1280, White Suns, and Squad Car, should hint at the doom-and-gloom nature of their sound, but it could never prepare you for the unforgiving brutality ingrained in every pounding note of this track. An impossibly bleak, nearing atonal chord, is carried on the shoulders of a heavier-than-heavy rhythm section, like a battering ram set aflame and systematically going to work on a castle gate. The drums alone, the grotesque guitar tone alone, would be enough to shake the ground you walk on and run your blood cold. It’s thickened with bass to the point of bodily seizure, as vocalist Alessandro Keegan’s ballistic shouts shower down, calling for apocalypse. All together, it’s as if this doomsday machine feeds off its own crippling volume. It’s so fucking heavy. Relentless. Unbearable. That is, until the tumult repeats and repeats again; the repetition becomes drone, drone becomes…almost…soothing? By its end, you submit to your own doomed fate. How grim can you get?
Hey New York! Conduit have some shows coming up!
8/11 – The Glove w/ Signal (EP Release) / Finished (Load Records, Providence) / Weeping Icon / Tanning Machine (Pittsburgh)
9/15 – RECORD RELEASE – The Glove with Dreamcrusher / The Dreebs / Decor
10/12 – Brooklyn Bazaar with Drunks With Guns (St Louis) / Brandy / + Special Guest
