The Red Chord should have a serious health warning. The words that keep repeating themselves in my head as I attempt to fight my way through this album is ‘complete and utter devastating violence’ for as soon as opener ‘That Certain Special Ugly’ flies out at you like a tornado of nails, all jarring riffage and terrifyingly intense drum fills you are pinned to the wall, terrorised by music so jaw-droppingly unique you’ll be shaking with both fear and excitement.

Splicing open riffs with pin-point precision this is one bastard of a record, stampeding furiously through the boundaries of just about every form of extreme music, from breakneck spazz-metal breakdowns to jolting math-metal syncopations to blistering grindcore madness, all the while seemingly connected by a desire to be as subversively unconventional as possible.

The only break granted to the listener is the short instrumental prelude to ‘Breed The Cancer’ recalling Black Sabbath’s ‘Planet Caravan’, which obviously doesn’t last long before the violence continues once more. One of the standout tracks ‘Sixteen Bit Fingerprint’ though, is just utterly astounding if only for it’s mesmerising guitar slides that race unremorsefully into a hardcore-metal freakout. This is extreme, challenging music that will get any fan of grind or math metal’s blood pumping uncontrollably round their body.

For Fans of: The Dillinger Escape Plan, Nasum, Decapitated.