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This Irish/British three-piece have created a real livewire of a record. Melding jazzy mathcore freak-outs with the production of dirty death’n’roll, Dead Lung is essentially the sound of Trap Them getting pissed up and playing along to their scratched and weathered copy of Calculating Infinity.

Which is obviously a very good thing. You want something heavy? What You Don’t Like is the aural equivalent of having a helicopter fly into your face. You want technical precision? Brain Face stops, starts and spins as if it’s reversing time. You want something a little different? How about the trumpet-led, smooth groove of 51 West 95th St?

Not many bands can combine progressive and brutal to such exciting and surprising effect, but as long as there are bands like Murdock around this genre will never stray too far into mainstream territories. And this is just their debut. Remember the name./o:p

Since blagging his way onto the Hammer team a decade ago, Stephen has written countless features and reviews for the magazine, usually specialising in punk, hardcore and 90s metal, and still holds out the faint hope of one day getting his beloved U2 into the pages of the mag. He also regularly spouts his opinions on the Metal Hammer Podcast.