Art Leads Me Stressing Into The Grave

It makes sense that I am spending my “week off” listening to a band called So Stressed. Instead of kicking back I am spending my week off, at work, doing work. Don’t ask. So some throat-shattering guttural punk is the best way to vent while pushing papers around a virtual box. The Sacramento trio are the first signing on Perfect Pussy leader Meredith Graves’ new label Honor Press, and their debut LP The Unlawful Trade of Greco-Roman Art does not disappoint. The rather esoteric album title belies one of the loudest, most brutal, most exhilarating albums I've heard this year. 'Cupcake Sister' opens things up and is a nihilistic buzzsaw torture machine of wailing precision and piercing punishment. There is a dark, meticulous undercurrent here that keeps the songs on a magnetic, kinetic pulse, which somehow heightens Morgan Fox's shouts and larynx-shredding screams into a white-eyed fever of such pertinence that the adrenalin spikes through your ears - instant headache/headrush. The violence to tension ratio sits precariously at 1:1, so brutal and anxiety-ridden The Unlawful Trade... is - and yet there is a frenetic energy that makes this exciting, relevant...dare I say even important? Grab the album here!