3 out of 5

Label: Acerbic Noise Development

Producer: Weak Music for Thomas?

Well, another assortment of AND folks who somehow manage to come up with another unique sound at, perhaps, the expense of any real standout tracks or moments.  Weak Music is a few degrees away from spazzcore, with a talk-to-scream vocal style that you could reference Fugazi or Lickgoldensky or something else that makes sense to you.  The majority of the album is a fast-paced freakout of guitar and drums, most of the songs not breaking the two-minute mark.  There are other instruments there – most notably keys – but frustratingly these are rarely used to great effect, and I wouldn’t pick on the group for this except that the songs which capitalize on this extra angle (the beginning, middle, and end of the album, natch) are the most dynamic on the recording and the ones that make your eyes bug out ’cause their implementation into the stuttering playing style is intensely well done.  That skill, as I should expect by now, does resonate on the whole disc.  Despite a lot of the tracks blending in with one another and the mostly monotone vocalizing not giving much memorable oomph to any given lyric (and they are somewhat generic anyhoo), no note feels wasted or stuffed in – by keeping it short and sweet, all the songs are of commodious structure, making ‘The Fire’ a fun disc to leave on a shuffle and wake you up for the few minutes its on, maybe even lumber over to see what’s playing when these key-tinged tracks come up, but afterward you might have trouble remembering exactly what the band sounded like.