This two tracker (one 15 minute studio thrashing and one 20 minute live and liquifying boiler) feels a lot more organic than their debut, relying less on electrics and letting the group dynamic push further. Again featuring Giffoni on electrics (albeit on subdued form), man of the moment Chris Corsano and Trevor Tremaine (Hair Police) as a duo of drummers and Brian Sullivan (Mouthus) on Guitar, this is the sound of an irreverent collective throwing grenades into Sonic Youth's tour van.
Beginning with a deceptively straight free jazz drumming passage, Tremaine and Corsano bounce off each other's half-rhythms. The much underrated Tremaine holding own against minor deity Corsano until the half gnarly guitar bursts through with the acid reflux oscillations forcing them off the autobahn. Squirreling notes are sieved through burnt-to-crisp solder wired Butthole Surfers vinyl, the guitar and its buzzing cousin groove through repetitive dial motions. The drums mixed up high to sound like barrels tipped down mountainsides taking out malls and home improvement centres.
For the live track it appears that Dominic 'Prurient' Fernow's artwork sharpened teeth typography and metal diagram may have seeped through the plastic into the music. The bellows of beasts and a black guitar's swirl of doom drag the piece cellarwards until precision cymbals appear like a cluster of insect proboscises feeling out the air. There's little to set apart the live and the studio tracks, Death Unit continue to explode on record regardless of the setting, a couple of more mellow pieces wouldn't go amiss next time though. There's ample proof that the collective can kick in speakers, but can they stop short of the brink as well as charge off it?
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