EXCLUSIVE FIRST LOOK: Suppression + Bastard Noise - “Infernal Legions” Album Review
Released: March 3rd, 2023
Anthems of the Undesirable
Suppression and Bastard Noise team up to unleash a sonic armageddon across 8 tracks with Infernal Legions. Released under the outsider music aficionados Anthems of the Undesirable, we are excited to feature and report on this new release from both a Richmond, Virginia native band, as well as long-standing noise pioneer Eric Wood’s contributions to said release. Be sure to follow Suppression, Bastard Noise, and Anthems of the Undesirable at the above tagged links! You’ll want to stay plugged in for updates on each, especially after your ears are decimated via Infernal Legions.
So let’s dig right in, yeah? It takes next to no time to be catapulted into fast-paced riffing and sheer high-voltage noise, even with the first 50 seconds of the opening track, “Fissures”, being an eerie sample that gradually bubbles up to the boiling point of the rest of the song. Followed in intensity by “Revisionist Utopia”, “The Glad Hand (Shit Clique)”, and “History on Repeat” (which I regard a personal favorite), the entire front end of the album is a beautifully sculpted, balanced and blended work of repulsive art; A wall of extremity and audible chaos that pounds you like multiple tidal waves for no more than 2 and a half minutes at maximum. By the time you realize you’re halfway in, you’ve already been absolutely jarred by 4 tracks of musical insanity, and somehow you’re still not totally sure what just happened. But this is a rollercoaster that demands a second and possibly third ride, even if you’re not going to get the same thing twice given you still have four more tracks to endure; So you ride on…
The second half pulls no punches, as you might have guessed. The onslaught marches on, with more intricate rhythms and focus on the ambience and noise elements being utilized in tracks like “Mouldering On The Ulterior” and “Infernal Legions Of Blood Soaked Minions”. As much as the album is a grindcore anthem of sorts (no pun intended given the label), it is also something of a cinematic experience; The wave of unconventional sounds and layers of feedback thrown in absolutely work to keep the album anything but predictable or simply riff-oriented white noise. All personnel involved are deep divers and explorers in waveform, so it makes perfect sense that Infernal Legions would absolutely go beyond the simple tropes seen within extreme metal music and grindcore.
A 20-minute ride of intensity, indeed, Infernal Legions is yet another astounding piece of Suppression’s discography, a piece in which Eric Wood’s noise manipulation only serves all the more. A mainstay for the DIY mentalities and especially the East Coast extreme metal scene (although I’m sure Suppression’s name has absolutely made it further out West, especially given their clear working relationship with California-native Eric Wood), an interesting tidbit about vocalist and bassist of the noise duo, Jason Hodges, is his own work with pushing bands in the hardcore, noise, grind and experimental variations with his label, Chaotic Noise Productions, which also houses previous Suppression releases as well. Needless to say him and drummer Ryan Parrish (who you may know from such acts as Iron Reagan, TERMINAL BLISS, Harmonic Cross, etc.) stay quite busy with other projects and being involved within the scene, and that’s when they’re not ripping away with Suppression itself. This sort of work ethic seen within the band is certainly a part of what has kept the project going strong since its conception in 1992. Another part is absolutely badass music as delivered on Infernal Legions.
Suppression cover plenty of family friendly subjects, lyrically, too! Politics, society, the dissolution and hyprocrisies within both, the corruption of the human mind, the day-to-day frustrations of living within a misguided landscape of people whose actions hold more weight on others and themselves than they realize, and plenty of other repulsive, angered, brilliantly-worded observations on the state of affairs. Plenty of education to be had listening in while head-banging yourself into a coma, so don’t miss out! Pull up Infernal Legions today, buy a copy, and be sure to stay up to date with all things Suppression at the links above! Huge shout out to Suppression, Bastard Noise, and Anthems of the Undesirable for this first-look, and looking forward to more outside-the-box music to come from all the above in future endeavors!
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