Endless Bore approached me through Facebook for a review of their new full length, Personal Development. I say full length, but with the songs averaging a minute and a half or less, even though there’s 15 of the fuckers, it’s not a long listen at all. Endless Bore are from Melbourne, Australia, and describe themselves as a hardcore punk band. Legit.
To me, this has a kind of power-violence / proto-grind feel to it. It’s nasty as shit. In a good way. I’d liken this to being tied to a chair and getting worked over with a length of rebar by a thug in a vest and a mask. Or maybe being water-boarded with sulphuric acid. It’s unrelentingly brutal this, but has a strange aura of gleefully malicious enthusiasm about it.
This is the slenderest hair’s breadth away from being the kind of thing that sends a nutcase up like a spark to a powder keg. The kind of stuff that people with terrifying eyes used to buy from me in back in the day. Obviously it’s not gore grind, but those types of people I think would appreciate the level of frenzy being applied to the task at hand. Think broadly along the lines of stuff like Minors, Charles Bronson, Combat Wounded Veteran and Infest coupled with the scummy hardcore of Slumlords, The Boston Strangler and Sheer Terror, and you’ve pretty much got this pegged.
This is exactly the kind of stuff that I try and avoid listening to for reasons of personal safety. I can literally feel veins pulsating in my temples and tension in my jaw. The type of thing that makes even a mild mannered (maybe not) wimp (definitely) such as myself feel both indestructible and completely intolerant of other peoples’ bullshit. I’m sitting here right now feeling like I want to go off at someone. Mental. Tony of Nurgle rating: 8.5/10
You can check this out on the bandcamp player below:
Personal Development is available to download on a pay what you like basis from the Endless Bore bandcamp page. You can also obtain this on cassette tape from the band at a gig. Or get in touch for mail order via the Endless Bore Facebook page.
Credits: all photos courtesy of 3 Chord Images; album art by Scott Reid of the band Dead Already
