4 out of 5

Label: Skin Graft Records

Produced by: David Bryant (recorded by)

Please don’t hate me, BUT HOW IS THIS NOT ARAB ON RADAR?  HOW ARE AOR NOT MENTIONED IN EVERY REVIEW OF THIS BAND?  I mean, AIDS Wolf crew, it’s no offense intended, as this isn’t sounds-like but closer to ‘is,’ if Aaron Paul wasn’t obsessed with masturbation and genetalia, meaning: It’s like you’ve gifted the world with new AoR songs.  Cities of Glass was its own chaotic beast, with its walls of offensive noise, but on March to the Sea the side-by-side comparison is even more of a double take, with song times creeping toward the minute mark and Chloë Lum’s hoots and howls atop the juddery bass and drums and guitar sounding like Yahweh outtakes, especially with the crisp Weasel Walter mastering.

I wish this sounded more like the praise I intend it to be.  I mean, play me a track from here and I’m probably wondering if I’m missing an AoR album, or if, hey, they formed a new band.  They did!  But with all different people!

Look: Everything on March to the Sea is played with extreme gusto, and intentional madness.  These aren’t pretenders to the throne.  And I would say, thanks to not being uni-topically obsessed a la Eric Paul (though search me for what’s being sung about), AIDS manage to top AoR as it goes beyond fury of attack into madness, into unexpected territory, which gifts us experiments like a ten-minute Throbbing Gristle cover which is pretty much, like, just pummeling us with noise as hard as the group can.

On their way to their final release (March was their next to last) – which was as a 3-piece, and here we’re still at 4 – these more concise “song” structures do lose a dash of that breathless skullfuck that made Cities such a blast to those of us who are so inclined (…to skullfucks).  But at 6 tracks plus that cover, you still get thoroughly thrashed, with the bonus of having enough life left over to hit play again.