Blacklab - Abyss (Limited Edition on 3 Green/Yellow/Black Cosmic Swirl Vinyl)

Recorded under a full moon over three intense days, it’s fair to say that Blacklab's world is marked by a fat dose of doom meets slowed down hardcore punk, filled with loud, ultra distorted fuzz guitar, and a surprising amount of melody as well.

In fact, Yuko has said that the band’s name is a combination of Black Sabbath and Stereolab, well here on ‘Abyss’ is where that strange mix begins to make musical sense.

It’s a pretty uncompromising sounding beast of a record too. The band haven’t lost their love of lo-fi or their ‘Riot Girrl’ attitude. The guitars are loud and heavily gnarled to the point of being on the edge of chaos. Vocals go from shoegaze melodic to hardcore screams (in fact rarely has a vocalist in this genre screamed so musically as Yuko does) and underneath all this, Chia batters the skins, all rolling and tumbling thunder amidst the riffs.

Yes there is a smattering of ‘Sabbathy Wizarding’ of course, but submerged within dark, deep fuzz and punk rock crank and grind. It’s a sound and vibe that is undoubtedly BlackLab’s own.