Do you like chaos? Well, you'll be going to the right place when you press play on "Christ Ape", the new full length album from Blister Unit. Across thirteen tracks and thirty six minutes, Blister Unit earns their band name with flying colors. The music is utterly relentless and dense like the imploding plutonium core of a thermonuclear weapon at the moment of detonation.
It would be easy to simply reach into the label drawer and pull out a grindcore sign to hang on this record, but that would disingenuous. Blister Unit definitely has a huge grindcore contingent within their arsenal, but they cleverly sidestep that falling blanket statement on "Christ Ape". From the first blasts of sound on Indigenous Nudity to the final assault of Tusks, Blister Unit delivers a diverse set of songs. Subtlety is the key point here, for Blister Unit's music has many layers to it and can't be unraveled with one spin of the album.
There are elements of death metal, punk, and even good old rock and roll to be found. All of this is wrapped up in a smoldering groove that the band maintains across the album, whether jamming at a slower tempo or blasting at insane speeds. When one listens closely they'll even hear some European flavored melodic death guitar parts and some oddball time signatures that may not be apparent the first time around.
The strangest thing about "Christ Ape" would have to be instrumental track Taung Child. This song's style is completely at odds with the rest of the album, it sounds like material that would be found on a Godspeed You Black Emperor! album. This is not to say that it doesn't work though. The song provides a sort of rest from the chaos in the middle of the recording. After this instrumental there is a triple combo of furious blows in the form of the title track, Dragonfruit, and the excellent The Shouting Eye, which is also one of the coolest song titles to have surfaced in recent memory.
So get on the horn and order up a copy of "Christ Ape" today and support a local Arizona band who is coming up with some great heavy music. Blister Unit has crafted the perfect soundtrack for the post apocalyptic landscape or a night of excessive drinking while playing with explosives. Either way, this record will remain dangerous and caustically epic.
Final Score: 8/10
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