Southern Records are responsible for recently re-homing the discordant, ear-rendering lunacy of Racebannon, prompting the band to bring to the table a new album after a four-year gap. Championed by the underground movement that demands it’s rock be non-generic, febrile and unpredictable, the quartet from Bloomington, Indiana are here to dip you in their aural bath. You choose - acid or blood?From the opening off-key guitar chimes, scattergun snare and fearsome feedback of ‘Translucent Lifeforce’ it is instantly apparent that the band haven’t been whiling away those four years in comfort. Edgy, haphazard and grimy, Racebannon bring us panic in sonic form. ‘Sister Fucker’ is all about the killer riff, a huge heaving beast of vibrating reverb over which Mike Williams’ vocal scorches a blaze of throttled fury.The further you move into the album the heavier it gets and the less subversive it becomes. ‘The Hard Way’ has a stoned groove to it, ’Candida & Parasites’ introduces industrial white noise insects crawling over our skin to a steady, booming backbeat. ‘The Killer’ is an anthem to the headless chicken sprint - the pace is manic, the vocals are relentlessly warping and then it all comes crashing to a halt as the body finally slumps prone before twitching painfully on to an eventual close.It’s not all fun and frolics though as some of the tracks do leave a bad taste in the mouth - the senseless speedfest of ‘Terror & Dread’, the ugly bitchslap that is ‘Vampyric Solution’ or the strange, Italian chant and warp factory, ‘Bella Ciao’. None of these seem to have a place on this Earth let alone this record.Flicking over to the band’s myspace page, I see crazed men doused in blood staring out at me. It is only right that an album with such utter disregard for their audience should come from those four pairs of eyes. If ever a band deserved an exclamation mark it is this one. 68%Links Racebannon [official site] [myspace]