What started out as two best mates trying to make the dirtiest, loudest racket manageable has morphed into a turbocharged brick shithouse of a beast.
This debut from Manchester guitar and drums duo The Hyena Kill was recorded at Abbey Road Studios following a PledgeMusic campaign, allowing Steven Dobb and Lorna Blundell to pack some real sonic muscle behind their feral, QOTSA-meets-Tool-meets-Nirvana riffs.
Over the last four years, and a couple of EPs and singles, the band have been gradually augmenting their sound, but Atomised sees them harness it into a real force of nature. Highlight Crosses takes those influences and contorts them into a swamp-thick mass of sound with meat-cleaver precision riffs, juggernaut grooves and rabid vocals. The band aren’t afraid to play with dynamics – see the shimmering smoulder of The Waiting Room and searing climax of the title track – but mostly, rejecting label calls to write “catchier songs”, the frantic grunge of Your Loss and Tongue Tied focuses on splatting guts against walls. A debut full of red-blooded promise.
