ACxDC - G.O.A.T.

Angry Metal Guy 60

If you don’t know ACxDC, then what are you doing with your life? Like listening to actually good metal? Too bad for your sorry ass. The LA natives are back in black for their own highway to hell, and it’s too good to be true. For the woefully uninformed and uncultured, don’t even think alternate or direct current and Brian Johnson, you swine. It’s Antichrist Demoncore, and the peanut butter cup moniker of divine apathy is so sweet and gummy. ACxDC’s EP The Second Coming was introduced when I first got to college, and if I’d had my way, debut full-length Antichrist Demoncore would have been blaring when I graduated. Well, maybe not, because they’re really fuckin’ obnoxious.

Now, I know I’m supposed to be the knower of all things and genres, but ACxDC was my first powerviolence experience, and only later did I delve into the grind-adjacent beatdowns of Weekend Nachos, Nails, or Mammoth Grinder.¹ Only when the inimitable Dolphin Whisperer crooned sweetly, explaining that powerviolence is actually grindcore’s degenerate and inbred little cousin did I understand that powerviolence is actually fundamentally better. Just as its two full-lengths, bevy of splits and EPs since 2003 suggest, ACxDC is about as meatheaded and tempo-abusing as they come, with hints of thrash, groove, and crust, with a forked tongue implanted heavily in cheek. It’s fun. It’s obnoxious.

G.O.A.T. by ACxDC

Oh look, you’re still here. ACxDC tears you a new one across twenty-four minutes and seventeen tracks of insanity hastily garbed in Satanic gym clothes for the second coming of the hot new PE teacher.² The riffs get hot and heavy fast, with tracks like “Boxed In,” “Greatest of All Time,” “Definition of Insanity,” and “Thot Police” dragging their crusty balls across unassuming listeners’ ears, while the relentless blastbeats and grindy sanders of “Wanna See a Dead Body?,” “Flying Pigs,” and “Vested Interest” are sure to warrant some facial reconstructions. Vocals are all over the place, shrieks and growls taking the piss, as tracks like “Fairweather,” “Clout Chaser,” and “Goatcore” take a bite straight outta that death metal buttcheek. The abilities of the guitars to shift from crusty hardcore a la Amebix to the thick slogs of Entombed A.D., and the manic attack of the drums and its formidable tone? Boy howdy.

Now, the chugs are a different story. And by a different story, I mean we go from Eclipse to Breaking Dawn, okay? I guess the chugs and stank make powerviolence not grindcore but I ain’t a gatekeeper – hell, I don’t even know anyone who keeps gates (what is that, for pets?). If you’re like, “oh Dear Hollow talks about the shit he doesn’t like in this section,” think again, bitch. The chugs of ACxDC are trying to be your friend, with tracks like “Karoshi,” “At Midnight” and “Cloud Chaser” clawing their way into your pants once and for all. Cuts like “Fairweather,” “Thot Police,” and “Expired” are necessary listening if you like music, but otherwise the rest of G.O.A.T. is the most obnoxious din ever, guaranteed to get your parents calling the pastor while clutching pearls and a copy of the ESV New Testament. Because that’s how ACxDC do.

I have a method (for once) for grading ACxDC. I take how many stank faces have I made through the course of this album, then take that number and divide it by, like, twelve or maybe eight. Whatever. Then I add a solid sixty-nine, then take the integral of that shit.³ My point is that I made a lotta stank faces with G.O.A.T. and I perturbed a lot of student work by blasting this in class. It’s ACxDC for the true G.O.A.T., IYKYK.

Rating: 3.0/5.0
DR: 4 | Format Reviewed: 320 kb/s mp3
Label: Prosthetic Records
Websites: acxdc.bandcamp.com | facebook.com/ACxDC
Releases Worldwide: April 26th, 2024

The post ACxDC – G.O.A.T. Review appeared first on Angry Metal Guy.