EP review: Exit International – Sex w/ Strangers

What is it about Wales, I wonder, that produces savage and schizoid three-piece noise-hardcore bands? Maybe it’s a reaction to that little nation’s recent glut of polished pop-metal product; maybe it’s the weather; maybe it’s the mental duality subliminally imposed by the bilingual roadsigns; maybe it’s the saccharine yuks of Gavin & Stacy providing a twee reinforcement of established national stereotypes to the world beyond the border. Or maybe it’s just the difficulty in getting a train to somewhere more interesting… whatever the cause, Exit International have distilled a whole lot of frantic fury about something into their music, and the results are pleasing: the Sex w/ Strangers EP packs four tracks into eight and a half minutes, and there’s not a moment of passivity or filler to be found.

These guys have previous: dual (though presumably not twin) bass players Fudge and Scott noised their way through the noughties in Martini Henry Rifles and Midasuno respectively. Not sure if sticksman Adam has manned the throne for anyone else before, but there’s few loud bands that wouldn’t benefit from his stripped back and solid bang-thwack attack, and it’s tailor-made for Exit International‘s attitude, which is best described (albeit rather lazily) as sounding like Future Of the Left might sound after three days of amphetamine abuse and solitary confinement with nothing but FOX News for entertainment – furious, frenetic, wild-eyed but surprisingly groovy, like pop music put through an industrial mincing machine by men with a long-held grudge.

The EP’s title track sets the tone with jagged and dirty stop-start-razor-rumble-riffage, but “Chainsaw Song” strikes me as the more obvious choice for the opener; it revives that four-to-the-floor indie-disco beat that was so big a few years back, but grafts on two bass guitar tones that make the song title more than appropriate. One takes the low road, and the other takes the high road, with the latter sounding like a hybrid of a Big Muff’d guitar and an old analog synth with a serious attitude problem. Add screeching roaring rage on the microphone, boil at full blast for 160 seconds, and serve quickly — before the diners see what’s coming.

“Lights Out” is even more Left-Futurist – especially in the verses with their manic monotone mantra lyrics delivered through clenched jaws beneath furrowed brows — and “Lay To Waste” brings things to a close more suddenly than a high street mugging in broad daylight; this is short sharp brutality at its least pretentious and most snappy. If you’ve ever wished Falco and company would really cut loose and drop the oblique weirdness in favour of flat-out fun and fury, this is the band for you. Exit International make music to smash windows to, so grab your brick and your balaclava; I’ll meet you in the car park behind Tesco in half an hour.