Confidently walking himself into a compact yet crowded club, Rodger, aged 57, twice divorced, proudly donning his flat cap and Download 2016 t-shirt, is surprised a chart topping Australian pub rock band like AC/DC would play such a small venue, let alone for less than £20 a ticket. It’s only once the band start to play that he realises he’s made a terrible mistake. Visions of a night full of sing-along rock hits are quickly replaced with brutal blast beats and unrelenting screamed vocals as he grasps the magnitude of his blunder, he’s walked into a show headlined by Antichrist Demoncore (more commonly known as ACxDC).
As ACxDC explode into the first merciless track from their latest album G.O.A.T. Rodger begins to get the impression that he isn’t going to hear ‘Thunderstruck’ tonight, the savage, minute long extreme hardcore of ‘Wanna See A Dead Body?’ rupturing his eardrums as he struggles to comprehend the madness in front of him. It’s not like Rodger can appreciate ACxDC’s inspired blend of hardcore punk, death metal and tongue-in-cheek sarcasm as his pint of Robinsons Trooper is knocked to the floor by an errant spin kick. To the more discerning extreme music fan meanwhile, G.O.A.T.’s concise yet nuanced take on the heaviest reaches of hardcore is bound to provide plenty of circle pit-worthy moments.
“To the more discerning extreme music fan meanwhile, G.O.A.T.'s concise yet nuanced take on the heaviest reaches of hardcore is bound to provide plenty of circle pit-worthy moments.”
There isn’t a single track on G.O.A.T. that doesn’t fly by like an elbow in an especially aggressive mosh pit before carrying on to Rodger’s chin, with even the longer songs on the album barely reaching a minute and a half, however, there’s still space for standouts like ‘Clout Chaser’ to shine. Tackling the surprisingly hefty topic of feeling like an imposter even in the face of people who maybe deserve a dash of imposter syndrome, it’s genuinely impressive that ACxDC manage to bring across a truckload of emotional catharsis in such a compressed time frame.
Clocking in at almost a full two minutes the track ‘Fairweather’ might as well be a prog rock epic to rival Rush’s ‘2112’ compared to the rest of the album, whereas ‘Flying Pigs’ beats even G.O.A.T.’s record for shortest track, barely even making it over thirty seconds. Both tracks lean on the more political side of ACxDC’s repertoire, with ‘Fairweather’ taking aim at suburban faux activists who latch onto trendy causes without contributing or understanding the issues at hand to a more doom metal inspired soundtrack, while ‘Flying Pigs’ focuses on the timely issue of overblown police forces who are unwilling or unable to change to fit the needs of the people, blasting through their message at a blistering pace. Remaining true to their extreme roots, ACxDC bring a playful experimentation to their sound, balancing whatever genre trope suits the moment with their politically aggressive message.
Just as our pal Rodger is just beginning to understand the appeal of a band like ACxDC, bruised and battered but with adrenaline and overpriced IPAs coursing through his veins, the band’s album comes to an end. Just over twenty three minutes split between seventeen tracks of raw, unrelenting extremity, at its core G.O.A.T. is a pretty simple album but, underneath the ear-splitting din of growls and distortion, there’s enough nuance to catch the eye of even the most hardened extreme music fans.