Re-igniting the long-extinguished, blackened stub of Oregon grunge, Portland two-piece The Hospitals continue the most genuine distillation of rock'n'roll catharsis: smashing shit. Alternating between dissonant wankery and primitive, barebones no-wave, the Hospitals sound like the offspring of Mars and Pussy Galore at their most narcotic, in a union fuelled by mutual hatred and disgust. Guitarist Rod hemorrhages and orgasms, frothing at the mouth, while drummer Adam bludgeons his drum kit into submission. Notes and time changes are in short supply, as the band prefers to keep accelerating deathward on a singular sonic highway.

Call it aural sadism. The result is a furious and unrelenting din of homicidal noisiness, as record opens mercilessly with an excruciating guitar screech underscored by feral yells and a steady bass drum. No amount of bracing can mitigate the erratic and jarring starts and stops, the primal shrieks that originate from some dark and inscrutable void. Melody equates to leprosy here, as the closest the Hospitals come to some semblance of such is on Hazmat, a track with a [sort of] descending choral structure.

The Hospital's live act, in aesthetic accord, is a disemboweling freakshow of tortured writhing and destruction. Yeah, it hurts, but it's a good kind of hurt, you know? Unapologetically ugly and coarse, this is the gritty, grainy shit of self-abuse, the very quiddity of self-loathing, translated into rock'n'roll kamikaze.

- Ashley Brown