This record has been something I’ve wanted since it came out but only recently picked it up. Butcher brings tight, breakneck hardcore punk played by familiar faces - blending in elements of d-beat, and Poison-Idea and Motörhead style riffs, with a few left turns here and there.
It sounds like an evolution of WBTD at times, particularly the song A Breath of Wind. The Top Of The Mountain’s outro guitar solo sounds like it’s from a lost Poison Idea track from Feel The Darkness. The lyrical theme throughout seems to be death, no more obvious than on the last song on the record, Summer Grasses. It starts with a melodic and dark introduction and that reprises itself as the album abruptly ends. Lyrically, it echos lines from a famous haiku from feudal era in Japan:
Waves of summer grass:
All that remains of soldiers’
Impossible dreams.
In Summer Grasses, it shows up as:
The smell of death and summer grasses - all that remains of soldier's dreams.
You gotta hand it to Jack Control for being so well read. Great record that has only grown on me over the years.