Death Index- Death Index

Artist: Death Index

Album: Death Index

Record Label: Deathwish

Release Date: 26th February 2016

Often the most lauded record labels in the world of rock and metal are those that most prolifically take risks; Profound Lore pushing Agalloch and Yob alongside experimental hip-hop group Dalek, or Cacophonous in the UK, pummelling eardrums with fresh sounds across the Metal spectrum via The King Is Blind and Black metallers The Infernal Sea. Deathwish records take pride in both prolificacy and eclecticism, and thus it makes perfect sense for the self-titled record by Death Index, a collaboration between Merchandise’s Carson Cox and multi-instrumentalist Marco Rapisarda, to be released via the US Hardcore haven.

Despite Cox’s frequent recent suggestions that he’s become totally disenfranchised from the punk scene, ‘Death Index’ is a short and sharp slice of murky death-punk that draws most endemically from the lineage of garage-recorded, basement-orientated bands like The Misfits. It’s not like there’s anything new being practised here in terms of dynamic, but so immediate are the songs, no matter the meanderings they occasionally take, and so blood-pumping is the rush that the album’s replay value is bound to be strong. ‘Dream Machine’ is archetypal in that regard; simple and direct but rigorously tight. The discordant distance of the more chaotic moments ‘Fast Money Kill’ and ‘Fuori Controlli’ still find the time to be anthemic, and the ecstatic flow of the sinister ‘Little N Pretty’ into the dystopian dirge of ‘Lost Bodies’ stakes the album’s claim for diversity.

Entirely shrouded in a mystical fog that attempts artistry beyond the band’s simple formula, all the elements thrown together by Death Index work rather immaculately, meaning that it’s a record one could listen to twice in a day and still feel excited for a third round.