Pupil Slicer – Mirrors review
Blinding whirlwind debut from math-grind trio
Following a series of split EPs with other independent acts, London’s grind/mathcore trio Pupil Slicer have unleashed ‘Mirrors’, their debut album and first release following their signing to Prosthetic Records.
Taking everything from intense grindcore and off-kilter mathcore to hardcore and powerviolence and putting them through a blender, Pupil Slicer have created an album that isn’t going to sit and politely ask for your attention; it grabs it from the get-go. From the opening salvo of ‘Martyrs’, short sharp shocker ‘Stabbing Spiders’ and the TDEP-meets-Tasmanian Devil single ‘L’Appel Du Vide’, Slicer get you right in the eyes and don’t let up. Whilst other bands in the their fields may often rely on ultra-short blasts, Pupil Slicer have chosen to give their tracks room to breathe, cramming in more riffs and ideas into a few minutes than others may in an entire album, but, to their credit – it’s a tightly-packed affair, without getting claustrophobic. Slicer give the impression that they just wouldn’t be happy settling with an album of two-minute bursts – tracks such as ‘Wounds Up My Skin’ (video below) and ‘Mirrors Are More Fun Than Television’ benefit from having longer durations than your average grind, without outstaying their welcome. There are plenty of pit-friendly moments to please the hardcore moshers too – I can imagine ‘Husk’ and album closer ‘Collective Unconscious’ becoming future live favourites.
A cacophonous whirlwind of metal extremity, ‘Mirrors’ is the soundtrack to the bull in a china shop – if its recent reception is anything to go by, expect to see a whole lot more smashing and slicing in time to come.
‘Mirrors’ is available now in various formats from https://pupilslicer.bandcamp.com/album/mirrors and https://pupilslicer.bigcartel.com.
For fans of: The Dillinger Escape Plan, The Locust, Brutal Truth, Blood Brothers, Agoraphobic Nosebleed
Live photo by Danny Robertson – Club 85, Hitchin, 27th September 2019
Contact:
http://facebook.com/pupilslicer
https://www.instagram.com/pupilslicer
https://twitter.com/PupilSlicer
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