Abandon hope all ye who enter Gaza’s grotesque, godless sonic world. Never the cheeriest of leftfield hardcore bands, Utah’s finest have plunged further into their own personal hell on their third album, wringing fresh blood, bile and tooth fragments from the crumpled, lifeless human effigies that pile up in the ruins of this remorseless assault on hope itself.
For those who find Converge a bit too dynamic and inspirational, No Absolutes In Human Suffering is all shadows, hidden trapdoors and random acts of violence; the churning dissonance and eyes-sewn-shut anguish of songs like The Vipers and The Truth Weighs Nothing sound hostile to everything and everyone.
The result is an album that will thrill those who like their extreme music to be born of ongoing experiential extremity rather than remembered horrors and enlightened catharsis. Veering between atonal dirge, incensed grind and hideous, disjointed grooves, Gaza are undeniably light on their feet but only because death is snapping at their heels. This is bleak as fuck and all the more distinctive for it.
