The first thing you notice when listening to Ape not kill Ape’s new album Bushman is how loud it is. You can turn it up, turn it to your regular listening volume, down as low as the volume goes, but so long as you don’t turn it off, it’s still loud as fuck, and it still fucking rocks.

The vocalist, a bastard son of M. Gira and David Yow, competes with the guitar for bombastic shouting power to dominate the landscape, nay, your entire fucking ear canal and beyond. Passing likenesses to Scratch Acid/Jesus Lizard are the best I can muster to describe a piece of the ecclectic and original cacophony that makes your ear drums bleed when you listen to Ape not Kill Ape.

Overbrimming with volume also typically comes off as overbrimming with self confidence, and the lyrical haphazardness furthers the impression. Graveyard dogs, ‘red room believers’, and a clerk named Wilson that cures blindness by jerking off into old ladies eyes are just some of the strange degenerates you’ll meet in the surreal hellscape that once again calls the lyrical prowess of David Yow to mind. Reverb laden gravelly speaking and unexpected spark start stop shouting alternate with a melody here and there while seeming randomly guitar brimming over with distortion, feedback, and delay screech along in the back, on the top, and spill out over the sides.

The bass anchors the project no matter where it goes, often describing the only semblance of melody you’ll get for an entire track. The drums either accompany the bass or blast along with the vocals and effects laden guitar spasms. The whole is an undeniably seamless frenetic energy ebb and flow that catches you off guard and rocks you off your ass until you cry ‘no more!… Alright. Play it again!’

This band kills.