Right off the bat I have to admit I love a bit of Clowns and having seen them in a small club recently playing songs off this record I got excited and when the promo dropped I cleared my listening list and just slapped this on put on some cycling lycra High Top trainers and a bandana and my dirtiest Dwarves T Shirt and began to axl dance with the stereo on ear destroying volume as the audio kicked in and my ears began to vibrate with excitment as the piano kicked in on ‘Endless’, wait! what Piano? Hell yeah motherfuckers piano it was like a punk rock opera was going off and lighting fireworks in my head seconds before the album kicked off proper and ‘Formalydehyde’ tore through the ether and the sceam made my eyes cross. Do something to be something is the mantra and we’re off. I colide with a wall but its ok I am still conscious. three minutes fly by with a familiar intensity and the band go through every hardcore cliche known to man with some exquisite noodling on the guitar solos almost takes my head off before turning the gas up a notch or ten. Superb opener.

The album ebbs and flows really well and they’ve not just thrown this together and they’ve tried to expand on what they do and up to this point have done oh so well. Combining classic metal riffage with hardcore is a place where Clowns sit comfortably and the vocals and screams are next level.

Your senses will be pulverised from start to the finish all via some epic choons like the power riffs of ‘Scared To Die’ that Priest would kill for also ‘Thanks 4 Nothing’ is melodic hardcore and a real pleaser it’s so energetic and if you play it early in the day you’ll have boundless energy for the next 24 hours it sounds huge. However, if you think that was huge wait until ‘Bisexual Awakening’ rips through your speakers beating its chest fiercely loud and proud, epic! and heavy as fuck!

Hell ‘I Got A Knife’ even has horns honking all over the place. They borrow the Hives vibe on ‘Z3r0s&0n3s’ hell they turn up the goodness on ‘Sarah’ with a breakout riff that is fuckin huge I mean Bronx huge and that’s always a good thing. They are freewheeling downhill on the brutal thrash around ‘Deathwish’ and show the metalheads that there is more to the scene than Metallica if the Yanks could riff like this then throw in a zylaphone middle eight before scooting off on a fierce solo with dive bombs and before thrashing out then hell, I’d buy into it. Hold on to your studded wristband and bullet belt because ‘Enough Is Enough’ is Thrash as fuck.

Wait, what ‘Quicksand’ is acoustic guitars leading into some dreamy guitar soloing before breaking out. Keeping you on your toes is the name of the game but hold on there is a nearly nine-minute weird ending upon us to sign off in classic Clowns fashion.  ‘A Widow’s Son,’ for a moment I did wonder what the fuck has my promo been corrupted with ads have I got to pay a premium subscription? Nope, its Clowns the mad fuckers. A narration from the ‘Casefile’ podcast, it’s the story of Ned Kelly putting to music a real head fucker of a song to be fair. Some might call it weird and they’d be right it is but hey it’s a new Clowns album and as they say down under it’s a ripper. Buy It!

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Author: Dom Daley