4 out of 5

Label: Acerbic Noise Development

Producer: Saragashum?

There are tons of references I could toss out here that touch on different aspects of Saragashum’s sound – Oxes, Keelhaul, Moreland Audio – but they emerge as their own sound, finding a tricky balance between the spastic / overkill / minimalism, respectively, of those three groups, creating this ongoing pummeling feeling that just keeps you rocking without causing you to get dizzy.  However, each track starts in a similar spot, seemingly have to play around with a generic chord progression before figuring out what new groove to move on to.  This robs the recording of that final X-Factor that would make it stand a cut above – going back to the above bands, the way that Saragashum sort of crosses between the three styles also means they can’t commit their sound, and so no overwhelming feeling emerges.  BUT: most instrumental rock I need to lay to rest after a while because my ears get exhausted.  Much of the Acerbic selection, especially the early stuff, has this quality of being just creative enough to stand apart, but just ‘easy’ enough on the ears that it can stay on repeat all day, and ‘Devil’s Chordbook’ is no exception.  The musicianship is super sharp, and I dig that they pull a Dianogah and save the vocals for select moments – on this EP it’s only one track, and following the structure I’m blabbing about, it sort of starts generic and then opens up into something else, with a great repeated mantra.  Unfortunately the last song here slows down and never really manages to develop like the rest of the disc, but by the time you notice that it’s not going anywhere it’s over and hey here comes that opening riff again…