4 out of 5

Label: Skin Graft Records, Sweatband Records

Produced by: Tommy Meehan

Squid Pisser keep doing their thing – which is somewhere between anarchic grindcore and metalcore, with showmanship that lead Tommy Meehan inherits from Gwar but runs through a snot filter – but with the addition of two new players, Michael Armendariz and Raz Azraai, that “thing” is allowed to get even sharper, and catchier, and more evolved, lyrically and musically. …Still, though, when you read the lyric sheet and spot your Nth reference to filling holes with different bodily fluids, you kinda want to tell Tommy that we’re good; we get the joke.

Tommy – as “Baxter Yogurt” – leads his masked crew through five blasts of beats and Daughters-y speedcore riffs, now inclusive of Marilyn Manson-esque breakdowns, i.e. you get the best of noisy showmanship mixed with pop-adjacent singalongs. The songwriting really has anted-up, though: these exist beyond the “simple” chaos or purposeful juxtaposition of cutesiness alongside crassness that kicked the band off, and continue the trajectory of their last album by finding melodies that work for whole, memorable songs and not just an overall effect. The concept is straining, though: a longer song like Rats feels like it has potential to build up to something, but it’s kind of an average (though still fun) metalcore tune, and all over the place you spot lyrics that suggest some deeper things going on, but “Yogurt” has to cover them up in swear words and bile.

I realize asking for maturity is against the overall gist of Squid Pisser, but I do think there’s some unrealized smart/stupid balance that’s just around the corner.

Seven remixes fill this out, and I’d say they’re almost all super worthwhile additions, retaining the general SP vibe while bringing in a new take on the mixed track that plays with the remixer’s skills. Drumcorps’ Mucus remix is just kind of like “now add an Aphex Twin snare rush” – not uninteresting, just not as involved as the other takes – but everywhere else we get transformed into 80s-styled beats, an industrial remix, a beautifully destroyed noise-first remix, and something that sounds like K.K. Null (note: it was remixed by K.K. Null).