Label: FRKST / 300 ENTERTAINMENT
Released: 20th August 2021
Rating: ★★★
Blackpool noisemakers Strange Bones deliver their first full-length release in a six-year career with the loud and abrasive ‘England Screams’, a full-throttle, balls-to-the-wall record that pins you down and unleashes torrents of venomous sound upon you, whether you asked for it or not. Raucous vocalist Bobby Bentham works alongside his two brothers and close friend to utilise biting lyricisms in a world-building conquest of a seismic scale.
Opener ‘Jungle’ immediately immerses listeners in an overgrown and tangled environment of the band’s own creation by weaving groaning riffs, robotic and deformed vocals and distorted electronica into ferocious waves of auditory extremes that rise up in ecstatic anticipation and brutally crash down with a euphoric mania. These waves rush out across the 12 relentless and chaotic tracks, providing escapism through an adrenaline-fuelled adventure.
The record precariously balances light and dark, order and chaos, the old and the new; extremes are pushed in every direction with no second thoughts and no hesitation. The weight of each slashing note is incremented by the sheer debauchery of each sonic addition, but they are pulled along with a swagger that leaves no holds barred.
Guest features open up the airwaves for some moody and dirty verses, particularly PAV4N’s viscous offering on ‘Dogma’ which provides a charged interlude between thrashing segments of electro-punk. Almost every chorus requires some serious safety measures to prerequisite the threatening momentum exuded – put your seatbelts on, kids, this album gets dangerous very quickly.
It’s a bone-crushing journey; how many will survive it is yet to be seen.
