Court Caust

With an evil metal-punk fervor that will be at home with the likes of fans from Venom and Sacred Reich to DRI and Raw Power, Court Caust load up their album with dark carnivals full of creepy vocals, hammering drums, and bone-rattling guitars. But their lyrics are not about trolls, hellfire, and the Upside Down world, they are gristly tales of being alive today in a crazed, battered, frustrating world.



In under two minutes, thundering barrages like "Mountain" detail the daily grind and struggle to endure modern life -- the sheer exhaustion, the confusing maze, and the shame and shit. "Workin' the Niteshift," which fluidly shifts tempos and intensities, tells the tale of being a nighttime weirdo stuck in a sunless vacuum: the hours of boredom and drug inhalation, drained and destroyed brains, and the haze of wasted time. It's fueled by anger and resignation, being a margin walker, and feeling like the disruptions will never end.



The heavy maelstrom of "Trash Day," with mutating vocals and headbanging whiplash, depicts the extended metaphor of a miserable, trashed life and feeling like a ghost in your own body, though deep down you know you need to tear down the claustrophobic, suffocating brick walls that surround you. Plus, they devour the Dicks' song "Kill From the Heart," turning the riotous lo-fi 1980s howl of Gary Floyd and company into a bracing romp with even more ghastly guitar and momentum. And they go even further with Texas punk history, jolting the tune "Slow, Stupid, and Hungry" -- a hilarious protest tune about the logic of legalizing weed -- by MDC with waves of dark electric mayhem.



Their other tunes are equally potent too, like the aggro pothead ode "Cashed Bowls Packed Souls," which punches at a fast-as-hell clip until it stomps and stops, detailing the days when seeds were everywhere and Cypress Hill were the avatars of all things sticky. And their most traditional punk tirade may be "Pills at Work," which has an underbelly of surf-music carnage, that outlines how Americans have become the Self-Medication Nation with their throats clogged with a thousand pharmaceuticals.