Not too long after their brilliant debut EP we already get to hear the first full LP of this Minneapolis group which still delights with a pleasantly old-fashioned genre mixture that primarily appears to take inspiration from the more left-field and melancholy edges of ’80s -’90s post punk, hard- and postcore history, although the influences are a lot more varied here with the opening song Hello World having a strong ’90s Dischord vibe somewhat reminiscent of the likes of Jawbox, Crownhate Ruin, Bluetip, Smart Went Crazy or Kerosene 454 while Tectonic Plates comes across like a curious mixture of Rapeman, Brainiac and Mule. Kick Geneva and Steve remind me a lot of Angst and Moving Targets, BDFI has some Butthole Surfers-esque doominess and it’s not before the second-to-last track, the instrumental What Happens Next and the subsequent Mantle, that those Mission Of Burma influences – which were more strongly present on the EP – kick into full gear once again. Anyway, through much of the record, there’s a slightly folk-ish undercurrent goin’ on aswell that further calls to mind such eighties US groups like The Proletariat, Volcano Suns, M.I.A. and My Dad Is Dead.
