Expander – Endless Computer


In the year 2015, and with Phased Plasma Rifles set cautiously to stun, Austin thrashers Expander announced themselves to the multiverse with a self-titled, independently released single, and their Laws of Power (Night Rhythms Recordings) six-track EP. Now, having woken from cryostasis, and with weapons set firmly to disintegrate, the Texan four-piece return with their full-length début Endless Computer (Nuclear War Now! Productions).

Combining the futuristic sci-fi themes, and early raging of Canadian legends Voivod with all the gentle and refined crust punk subtlety associated with Toxic Holocaust, Expander are here to chew bubblegum and melt brains. And (yes, I’m really doing this) they’re fresh out of bubblegum.

A concept album about a formless cosmic entity representing the pinnacle of technological advancement seeking autonomous control over all atomic matter in the universe (you know, sort of like what would happen if the internet ever woke up power-hungry and pissed off), Endless Computer tells an interesting story as well as kicking serious amounts of dystopian bottom.

At first glance, the album appears to be simply another (admittedly fine) example of simple, unrestrained Thrash designed purely to wreck necks and dislocate faces. But lurking underneath the battle-scarred, radioactive earth, there are embryonic shoots of something far more complex. Hooks and melodies ooze upwards out of the blackened dirt, and off-kilter rhythms appear and disappear inside an otherworldly atmosphere, metamorphosing for a while into more simplified, groove-based riffs and conformist song structures as they writhe and contort angrily within their fairly brief three to five-minute life-spans.

 

Aided by the hive-mind of amusingly monikered cohorts, Swirly, Guzzler, and Keymaster, vocalist General Ham growls, shouts, snarls and bellows his way belligerently through songs like ‘Biochron Space Suit’, ‘R-Type 2 Civilization’, ‘Mechanized Deathcanal’, and ‘Timezapped’ with all the restraint of an escaped mental patient armed with a bone saw and a violent personality disorder. And with engineering duties performed by Converge guitarist Kurt Ballou, with mastering by Toxic Holocaust mainman Joel Grind, the production is a precise but suitably dirty balancing act, with absolutely nothing lost in the darkest recesses of the mix.

8.0/10

GARY ALCOCK