Reykjavik!: The Blood
(Kimi)
If Reykjavik!’s 2006 Glacial Landscapes, Religion, Oppression & Alcohol was the sound of innovative late-90s hardcore (think Refused, think Blood Brothers) gone epically irreverent, this is something stranger: an AmRep crunch spliced with manic vocals halfway between doom metal and hair metal. In places, this takes it to somewhere close to the over-the-top sensibility of pre-reunion Coalesce. As it progresses, The Blood pushes the group’s style to even more pointed extremes, from the oddly melodic “Repticon� to the Dionysian rave-up heard on “Fokk Nietzsche�. And by the time “Random Acts� closes the album with swirling samples that evoke a chaotic mindstate, that gleeful confusion seems entirely appropriate.