Hard Industrial Bop (Cassette)

Subversive noise rap belligerence from Prison Religion on Lee Gamble’s UIQ, shattering paradigms with uncompromising blows of atonal noise, hardcore aggression and larynx-shredding vox. Riyl Slikback, Blackhaine, Death Grips, clipping, Dreamcrusher. Presenting the duo of Parker Black & Warren Jones’ first fully formed work as Prison Religion after introductory mixtapes for Rabit’s Halcyon Veil, ‘Hard Industrial Bop’ yields a definitive statement of brutalist intent. Reading the room’s need for more guttural, truthful expression, the nine tracks were forged against a backdrop of uncertainty and panicked stasis, with the “arduous and scattered process” of recording becoming a commentary in itself.The blistering results are borne as a historic parallel to jazz’s transition from bebop to its more uncompromisingly expressive strains at the hands of Art Blakey and the Jazz Messengers with ‘Hard Bop’ in 1956, effectively subverting the status quo of convention, as they put it, “in the face of overwhelming hypocrisy”, offering a palate-cleanser in the process. While it may sound f*ck-all like putative takes on jazz, ‘Hard Industrial Bop’ undoubtedly shares a template-tearing energy with the original mode in its ruptured rhythmic attack and embrace of unusual tonality that speaks directly to the contemporary reality of an ever-degrading society. In short, sharp shocks, they offset industrial noise against mauling post-breakcore and something like early Arca in the rap roil of ‘Brick Dust’, turning to near screamo violence in ’Turret’, and unleashing all heck in the caustic barrage of sirens, white hot leads and bombed out destruction of ‘Survival, Leave Me Alone’, with ‘Torn Up Body’ pushing the wildest examples of Death Grips and Blackhaine to panic attack-inducing degrees. Proper existential de-compression, essential listening for anyone left sweaty and breathless by recent deployments from Dreamcrusher, Moor Mother or Deli Girls.