Backslider still has no limit for its second album.
Since 2008 in the United States, the band nowadays composed of Logan (guitar/vocals, ex-Raw Sewage), Jake S (bass, Cain Corso) and Jake C (drums, Writhing Mass) melts Grind, Sludge and other saturated sounds. Psychic Rot, their second album, is released in 2022.
Asymetric Torment strikes first with the delicacy of a pachyderm and an extreme saturation to welcome raw howlings, but also some energetic and very straightforward accelerations. The sound is greasy and even when Pseudomessiah tries to place an airy dissonance, thick riffs wear some explosive and uncontrollable violence. We barely breathe with the weighing Interlude 1, offering some Noise tones and a vocal sample, then Collision of Desire makes us sink again into a raw violence feeded by unexpected accelerations and mad harmonics. The tempo slows down with Bone Thief and its ambient blackness which turns into an abrasive groove, but violence is never far and the band does not waste too much time before accelerating again and crush us a second time under waves of dirt. Mortuary Art offers similar patterns, but the next acceleration is more hooking and dancing while unveiling explosive harmonics to go with the motivating rhythmic, which ends right before Interlude 2. It’s the same point than the first time, but we add a worrying guitar before Goat Snuff comes to spread chaos with as straightforward as saturated riffs. The track is very short, like Corpseflower, the next one, but both will undoubtedly allow the band to create violent crowd movements before knocking its audience out with The Floating Door, the longest track of the album. This last composition is as unhealthy and effective as heavy, and the band easily floods us with grease and dirt before ceasing fire.
Backslider only express itself with violence. Whether it is fast, groovy, explosive or extremely seizing, it has its place on Psychic Rot, a crushing and disturbing album which does not draw a distinction between genres before striking.
75/100