The Orchard Near-Death Travel Services [VINYL]

Hardcore/Metal legends DEADGUY return after 30 years with their sophomore LP Near-Death Travel Services. After reuniting on stage to prove that a few decades of dust couldn’t keep them from tearing into audiences like old times, DEADGUY innately understood how heavy and deranged a new album would need to be – and that’s exactly what they delivered. Simply put, Near-Death Travel Services absolutely rips. A deserved follow up to the highly influential, hall-of-fame-worthy Fixation on a Coworker debut, Near-Death Travel Services tears into 11 tracks with the same confidence and palpable fury of its predecessor. From the first enraged scream that ignites “Kill Fee,” the record overflows with angular riffs, clashing guitars, fractured rhythms and gutter bass that no one does better - with even more red meat and gristle. Instead of moving away from their sound, DEADGUY dug in deeper, expanding their songs and giving vocalist Tim Singer more room to again show why he’s been one of the best vocalists in extreme music since the first Bush administration. A young Singer ranted about the greed and cruelty that affected him and his friends, but now as a father sees this bleaker modern day testing his children. “The sky is falling/It’s landing on us,” he warns on “The Alarmist.” In “The Forever People” he demands you “Pick your gods/Pick your side/We’re selling tickets for the end of time.” And yet all of this still retains his darkly comic humor, the sense that he is screaming along with us at the absurdity in front of our eyes. Drummer Dave Rosenberg led the charge on the album’s songwriting, learning guitar and writing a mountain of riffs in that time. While he cites influences that range from surprising to “no fucking way”, Rosenberg admits that there is something that happens when these riffs reach the rest of the band. “What Crispy (Chris Corvino, guitar) has always said is that this is just what it sounds like when we play together." Near-Death Travel Services’ title is an inside joke, the band reflecting on touring and playing this music when they’re ostensibly past their prime. But there are no signs of this being a swansong; no winding down, no taking it easy or resting on their laurels. How were they able to pull it off? Maybe some egghead professor of musicology can figure that out, but for the rest of us it’s best to just gratefully sit back and enjoy the massacre. Short: Hardcore/Metal legends DEADGUY return after 30 years with their sophomore LP Near-Death Travel Services. A deserved follow up to the highly influential, hall-of-fame-worthy Fixation on a Coworker debut, Near-Death Travel Services tears into 11 tracks with the same confidence and palpable fury of its predecessor. FFO: The Dillinger Escape Plan, Integrity, Rorschach, Converge, Pig Destroyer, Cave In, Ink & Dagger