Out on the fringes of rock there ain’t half some noisy bastards. It’s not just Wire magazine-friendly, supposedly cerebral sorts who push the boundaries, not just avant-garde industrialists, Finns making “tone music” and Japanese gentlemen with vast arrays of effects pedals, every one bearing a manifesto quoting Deleuze, Nietsche et al. Nope, sometimes there’s just a visceral joy in pushing music far over the edge, and it can be done on the cheap after a few pints, just for kicks.
Gabber does it, or used to, and certain varieties of puerile yet enjoyable drill’n’bass too, but there are more traditional forms and the most basic of them take metal as their blueprint. Hordes of young men the world over hurl themselves about to music that’s indecipherable to outsiders, revelling in its pure raging wildness, and possibly the fact that they alone can tell whether they’re listening to thrash, grindcore, doom, deathcore, sludge or whatever. And it is exciting, this music, a palate-cleansing Armageddon of Uzi blast drums, staggering thump-riffs and genre-defining puke-vocals, all melding into a machine-wall cacophony. When there’s an outfit displaying take-no-prisoners commitment behind it, the sound carries a heft that’s impressive.
Dripback are such a band. Formed for a laugh by a group of tattooed, meaty and belligerent-looking Londoners toting a righteous array of piercings and facial hair, they charge out of the traps on their debut album with a Cockney geezer sample sneering, “You fucking listening to me? I said, 'Come on you cunts'.” It seldom lets up. Songs veer between preposterous and invigorating. In the latter category is “Wasted” and the livid “Victims”. Somehow, as the ear becomes attuned to what Dripback are up to, it renders Sabbath-misery “slowies” such as “Seeing Without Eyes” and the oddly soundtrack-like title track all the more enjoyable. It’s an acquired taste but anyone sick of the usual kaka should dive into this bedlam of uproar. They seem to mean it, and that’s what counts.
Overleaf: Watch Dripback live at Electrowerks, London, last year