Blank Square Animal I LP Vinyl

Vinyl LP pressing. 2017 release. When squirming black mold in a dingy Bayshore, CA, warehouse became sentient, creaked and took humanoid form it created Blank Square and their singularly odd-punk debut, Animal I - sounding like the weirder end of Flesheaters but with a sterility that can only be contemporarily compared to Total Control's Aussie hardcore no-wave and then with a pinch of what made DNA and Mars amazing. This album is captured with plenty of concrete and sheet metal kept in the mix and a highlight towards dissonant syncopations, as if it was recorded in a empty room minus one chair and definitely down a flight of wet, cement stairs. Featuring saxophone with a mild but nauseating-at-times rippling slap delay, the band cruises on a rhythm section that sounds like they've got another house show to play tonight after this one. Rectangular in all the right places, it's uncomfortable, like sleeping in a car. For listeners who love art in their sax punk, reaching way back into California's punk history (SST would've undoubtedly dug this). There you go, weirdos.

1. One Way 2. Bangers 3. Empty My Head 4. Fuc'd 5. Bad Acid 6. Quark 7. Put a Lid on It 8. I Was High 9. Charmer 10. Exit Saint 11. Tape Measure 12. Youth Trash