ninehertz

With America collapsing into openly fascist government chaos and – as seen by the residents of Minnesota this past month – a fight back street level resistance, the return of Vulgarian, with their anti-capitalist sludge and grindcore, comes at a time when their message is more relevant ever.

There are more targets than usual and such is the righteous vitriol it is impossible to separate the music from that message, delivered with a burning anger through lyrics and samples. Such is the pace of descent that this must have been updated right to the last minute of recording – Deportations, obviously taking aim at ICE, has newsreel samples covering the murder of Renée Good. W.C.N.S.F we learn stands for “wounded child, no surviving family”, used in Gaza, and as the commentator referenced points out, the fact that is common enough to have its own term is a horrendous byproduct indicator of genocide.

It feels slightly perverse to talk about the music in such circumstances; to describe how Deportations sounds like raw, powerful sludge in purely a musical sense feels wrong. I found it hard to concentrate or enjoy the sludge through the anger and sadness, but rest assured that, as they have shown since their debut Human Scum from back in 2020, Vulgarian understand the approach to this music, slow and ugly, using passages of sparseness to build the tension.

Yes, it is a fantastic sludge grind album in purely musical terms. But it is more than that and that is only right. Abolish ICE. Fuck Trump. Call out the genocide in Gaza for what it is. And fuck Farage and many more too for this is a global disease. Sludge has always had a punk ethos and Vulgarian harness that in the most acrimoniously, bludgeoning and ultimately responsible way.