Record of the Week: Gas Chamber
GAS CHAMBER — “Stained Hands” EP
Though I must confess that I’ve personally slept on them for far too long, these progressive Buffalo punkers have been turning a lot of heads recently (pun intended) with their left-field take on hardcore, and this record makes it all too easy to see why. The titular track starts out as a meandering, sunbaked slice of anarcho-psych, taking its sweet time before cascading into a cacophonous whirl that is at once ripping and dreamy. The B-side is just a fierce, with desert vibes that would make the MEAT PUPPETS proud, and they even manage to pull off an instrumental track on a hardcore 7″! Getting more mileage out of a chorus pedal than just about any band in contemporary punk (R.I.P. LIFEFORM), I could see this getting filed under the ever-so-saturated banner of “melodic crust,” but this is simply too fuckin’ weird to squeeze into any generic microniche. Cheers to GAS CHAMBER and SPHC for another solid fuck off to hardcore conformity. (Will Blomquist)
(SPHC)
