This Austerity Program Is Calculated Brilliance

I don't remember exactly the moment I "discovered" New York noisy duo The Austerity Program - but it was probably around the time I was heavily into listening to Hydra Head records and in particular Helms Alee's Night Terror. if you haven't listened to TAP's seminal 2010 EP Backsliders & Apostates Must Burn, do yourself a favour and DO IT RIGHT NOW. Don't even read the rest of this post. Just do that - NOW (and if you live in Brisbane, there is definitely a copy of it in Tym Guitars - I put it on the shelf especially yesterday).


It's taken a bunch of years for these warped brothers in nascent narcissism and devilish grins to bring us a new release. They scurried from the embers of Hydra Head Records and formed their own label, Controlled Burn (along with fellow brothers Nonagon, whose own The Last Hydronaut LP was their first release - and we fucking loved it). But we FINALLY have Beyond Calculation - and it's everything I hoped for and more. With one guitar, one bass, one vocal and one pissed off drum machine (how else can it cope with such brutality? The machines seethe too...), this band flays the outliers of society, laying their situations bare and brandishes the remains with maniacal glee, jamming it down the throats of sympathisers and non-believers both.


Steve Albini's abrasive outfits will come to mind here, but there is something more inherently comical, garish and nightmarish about Beyond Calculation that he and his hoary brethren could never broach. Yes, each song is calibrated and refined to such a brutal dexterous distillation that they cut through the thickest of red tape and indifferent hides; yes, the impassioned cynical howl of Justin Foley turns from playful to destructive in a heartbeat (or heart attack). They can be tightly coiled mechanical beasts of burden; lumbering colossi of brutal metal dirge; intricate triangulations of technique, wit and excess. Overall, though, The Austerity Program is shining the magnifying glass on the 21st century with furious intent - and in most cases, the insects under scrutiny is us.

Pick up Beyond Calculation here - it's a must.

Scratchin' Round - So Stressed, Nonagon, Violent Past

This guy tells me today that he did a management course last year. Is it wrong to think immediately worse of someone who admits to such a thing? Nope. He goes, 'Yeah, they told us that if employees are getting their backs up about things, you just form a committee and let them bluster. After that, it's too late for them to do anything." Seriously. Some chump stands up in front of a whole bunch of other chumps and straight-face tells them how to make chumps out of everyone else. I cringe whenever I hear people ask for feedback.



So Stressed have not been to management school. And from what I hear, if anyone tried to junk them into a committee, the noise would be so resounding that the bosses would have to up and leave the building. I'm beginning to think that this might be the only way to break through; to make the noise you want to make, for as loud and long as possible; to give them THIS as feedback when they ask for it.

I 'strongly agree' with all of Attracted to Open Mouths but if you're too busy collating data for your focus group presentation, you still need to make time to give 'Hairstyles' a go.

And damn, if I ever get up the guts to give it back to 'em, I'm gonna play Nonagon. Out on their own label, Controlled Burn, the name sums up the sound perfectly - this is organised stuff. Organised stuff capable of doing some real damage. Controlled, yeah, but in the back of your head you just know that while it's meant to be under wraps, next minute could very well be licking the building upside down, turning all that carbon they thought was theirs into atmosphere forever. That'll get 'em up the corporate ladder quicker.    

'The Last Hydronaut' is drilling, relentless and passionate in a way that a lot of music out our way - the lazily complacent, climate change denying, land down under the average line of intelligence - isn't. See, 'cos if you think about things for a bit, and you don't just want to roll over and take it, this is the kind of music you'd make, I reckon.

But wait, maybe I'm getting a bit carried away. Burning the place down isn't the only way to resist getting caught up in the tidal wave of ignorance threatening to wash us all into frothy oblivion - and plus, it'll just add to the whole (very fucking real) emissions problem. Maybe getting your mates together to spread the news rather than the gasoline is a better idea? There's no easy answers. But you do have to make people realise that they don't give a shit before they will.



Violent Past are infected by the malaise, but there's some self-awareness here on Demons, something that looks to the future and gets a little ready. 'Yeah, I'm wearing a white business shirt,' it says, 'but I'm hungover and I ain't cleaning that stain off today, and who knows what'll happen tomorrow? You really want me to join your working party?'

So whether you spit or march or yell or whatever, just don't let some chump pin you down - or at least make the clammy fucker have to put down his briefcase to do it.