3 out of 5

Label: Auris Apothecary

Produced by: Joel Henline (recorded by)

Fun spazz-punk from Ex Fauna-er Joel Henline, backed by Hot Nerds’ drummer Thomas O’Connell, Disperser’s debut very much leans toward the vocalist’s other efforts, going for blitzy guitar scales and thrashy speed percussion, with Henline ranting atop. The tweak here is that this leans more towards a Daughters / 31G style of hardcore – it’s aggressive but not ear rattling; lyrics are shouted but discernible, especially armed with a lyric sheet. And when the duo allows some space into things – some moments of relative quiet, as on Mute Alterations – it shows how this project can be pushed to different heights (very much witnessed on their followup full-length).

While DAS’ mixing helps to balance out the levels, the self-recording of these songs does leave it with a general flatness, sort of familiar from Ex Fauna. As Disperser is maybe trying to carve out slightly more dynamic songs, this perhaps doesn’t serve the 7″ best, but it nonetheless gives us a taste of their sound, especially if viewed as a warmup for something more polished.