- Since its inception last year, Milo Smee's Power Vacuum label has built a small but sturdy discography of cartoonish, industrial-strength acid. For its fourth release, the Chrome Hoof co-founder reprises his and Andy Blake's Invincible Scum project, which was responsible for a couple of releases on Blake's Dissident imprint in 2007/08.
Their formula remains largely unchanged from that time, and indeed from recent releases on Power Vacuum: these are punchy hardware work-outs that wring a certain aggression from crisp, metallic elements. But where the appeal of past Power Vacuum releases was often their concision, lead track "Scumrush Pt. 1" has more in common with Blake's long-form Cave Paintings productions. Put simply, it's a relentless epic, carrying a hallucinatory intensity but not quite supplying enough shock and awe to merit its 13-minute length.
A brief "Reprise" gives a more refined take on the material, stripping out the layers of hi-end detail to let the bassline do its hypnotic work. But it's with Smee's alternative mix under his Bintus alias that things really get interesting. The original material is compressed into a third of the time by way of abrupt changes in tone and some fantastically heavy processing. What results is chaotic, playful and deeply druggy.
TracklistA Scumrush Pt. 1
B1 Scumrush Pt. 2 (Bintus Scum)
B2 Reprise