Lords

Chris Owens has his own way of doing things. In the past two years, his dedication to Lords has left him punching out dubious Canadian tour promoters attempting to frame him for drug possession, defending the fact that he didn't pee on an audience but instead peed into someone's hands who ended up throwing it on the audience, dealing with losing a label for his band's second full-length which was shelved while he shopped it around, losing a drummer and founding member, and finally having to punch out a dubious touring bass player demanding money that the band didn't have.

But his dedication has always come to fruition for his band's music. Though press sheets may say that Lords sounds like Slayer covering the Pixies, in reality, Lords is a tribute to the thrashy `80s hardcore from boundary-pushing labels like SST. And Owens is extremely particular about every single aspect of the group's sound, including the literal wall of amps he has to build at every show and whether or not the bass player uses a pick or his fingers (it has to be a pick, by the way).

And though it was written and recorded at least a year ago, Fuck All Y'All Motherfuckers seems like a kiss-off to all the bullshit he's dealt with. Recruiting Eric from Lickgoldensky, the album is chock full of the furious riffing, thrashy palm muting, and stop-and-go rhythms and tempos that jerk and rock and thrash from side to side.

Like the previous albums, the overall sound sometimes gets washed out at times through the raw, reverb-laden production, but that's only a boon to songs like "Why I Don't Give a Fuck," which features double-time screaming and guitar bashing to the point of indiscernible noise. But in between the furious moments of speed are the fast, rigid grooves of the mid-tempo tracks like "Waist Deep in Shit," "The Leginald of Reginald" and the sludgy "Man, Everything Sucks."

Fuck All Y'All Motherfuckers is an album of nihilistic anthems for the bro-core generation. The most astute line Owens screams into the microphone is culminated in "It all looks like shit / because it really is." The band has taken the spirit of their influences, ran it through the meatgrinder of apathy and placed themselves at the top of the mountain of the genre like a sensationalist neon feather.

The whole album is a hyper-stylized presentation. The album starts with an emcee announcing a performance at a bar while a group of hecklers shout curses at him. "The Leginald of Reginald" starts and ends with the production cutting out to a super flat, analog tape fuzz. "Intermission" is a baby voice and demon voice talking about music over cut up drum sounds and ambient shouts.

And while everything is scrutinized and pored over before released to the public, and the band often spends 20 minutes setting up for a 20-minute set full of their songs played so loudly you can't really hear what's happening, it's all the work of a prankster / artist / hardcore visionary. And with the release of Fuck All Y'All Motherfuckers, the world's a little bit richer.