Age Of Collapse- Transmissions LP (Sale price!)

A lot happens in "Static,” the first track on Age of Collapse’s new album Transmissions. It opens with a melancholy drone, suggesting something dark and harrowing to come. Yet soon enough, that drone bursts into a manic explosion of crusty hardcore, complete with a series of black metal blast-beat eruptions. By the end, the song cruises into a Discharge-style d-beat gallop, the band guiding it toward the exit with a beastly round of gang vocals. And all of this happens in one minute and 44 seconds. 

Like the previously mentioned Discharge or fellow crust-punk icons Amebix, Age of Collapse doesn’t need a lot of time to lay down some devastatingly heavy sounds. "Static” is proof of that, as is the more direct, visceral charge of second track "Protocol.” But Transmissions isn’t an album that solely comprises under-two-minute beatdowns and rave-ups. In fact, Age of Collapse have crafted a strong album on the whole, one that features not only its share of hyper-charged punk and hardcore songs, but an impressive diversity of sounds within their vicious, crushingly heavy realm. 

 On Transmissions, Age of Collapse prove just as adept at slower, sludgier, more epic compositions, two of which arrive pretty early on. "Interference,” at just over five minutes in length, opens with a darkly eerie bit of ambience, taking its time to reveal itself before a round of chugging guitars ushers in one of the album’s most accessible, yet still gnarly, tracks. There’s a similar progression to "Malfunction,” which is six-plus minutes long and moves much more slowly. It’s the most dirge-like track here, with guitars that ring open rather than continuously charge, though its most impressive moment comes at the end, when the song rides out on an atmospheric, extended gothic outro.

Though Age of Collapse’s slower, longer tracks certainly leave a forceful impact, there’s no question that the more direct hardcore numbers like "Walls” are more immediately satisfying and, for that matter, catchier. Age of Collapse prove themselves as versatile as ever on Transmissions, but they still make some righteously angry noise. It’s a hell of a sound.