There must be something foul in the water of Nashville, Tennessee for whatever the three members of Yautja have been drinking seems to have done them all a nasty mischief. Featuring former members of Coliseum and Nameless Cults, Songs of Descent (Forcefield), the debut album concocted by this unholy trinity of musicians, is chock-full of nasty, punk aggro, fist-swinging grind fury and dissonant Melvins-indebted sludge heaviness. In short, it’s all over the place, tearing at the seams and seemingly ready to explode violently at any given moment. By and large, this works in the band’s favour.

Song lengths vary from the minute-long blasts of hatred such as ‘Concrete Tongue’ and ‘An Exit’ which sounds like a more ramshackle Nails playing with knives at their throats to the tortuous crawl through broken glass that is album-centrepiece ‘Faith Resigned’, a seven minute dirge that will have you reaching for the shotgun and pills in no time. Elsewhere, the sickeningly catchy groove of ‘Tar and Blindness’ upsets the apple cart with its juxtaposition of hip-shaking riffs and sheets of noise, made worse by some merciless and intrusive percussion courtesy of Tyler Coburn.

With all three members handling vocals and maintaining a tempo seemingly an afterthought, Songs of Descent is one of the most unpredictable and dangerous records committed to tape in a while. Living up to its title, this thirty-seven minute, multi-tentacled monstrosity is the soundtrack to a descent to hell and I still can’t decide if it should have been drowned at birth in the interest of public safety. So before Yautja are declared a health hazard it would be worthwhile to check out Songs of Descent although the intense bad vibes experienced may take some getting used to. Fuck it, embrace the hate.

 7.5 / 10

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JAMES CONWAY