The Houston natives in Rusted Shut have been at it for a serious stretch now, wreaking havoc in one form or another since 1986, as long as I’ve been alive. Given their limited output though, it’s nice to see the group unfurling a full length for mass consumption. Which isn’t to say I’m so sure the masses are going to be so willing to consume such putrid stuff.

This is some seriously gnarly stuff, combining unabashed guitar slayage with singer Don Walsh’s bleak as concrete vocal sputtering. Unrelenting in its aggression, tracks like the opening “Home”—which features such uplifting lyrical content as the repeated refrain, “America is a head-on wreck”—or the 15-plus minute demolition derby of “Intellect” capture a band whose conceptual motivations are pure energy and whose modus operandi includes proper disrobing off all things ugly, somewhere between the barroom bombast of Motorhead and the destroyed sonic planes of Dead C. Yet there’s a punkish irreverence here, an almost euphoric dementia in the episodic flaying about displayed. Yowzers. Certainly not for the faint of heart, but this is a band that knows how to tear it down and leave the bricks for dust. Play it for any friends who think Disturbed is the hardest band on the planet. They are, of course, erroneous. 7/10 -- Henry Smith (2 September, 2009)