Perth, Australia's Extortion hold a very very special place in my heart. For the better part of a decade, they've put out consistently great releases of ripping, fast hardcore, but with their last few releases, from their split with Septic Surge up to the "
Loose Screws" 10", something seemed absent. The aggression was definitely pulled back, and everyone just seemed a lot less fierce. The recordings just sounded a lot less genuine than usual. So you can imagine my ear to ear smile when I heard their side of this excellent split 12" with Austria's Cold World. Extortion is definitely back with full force on this recording, especially their vocalist, Rohan, who sounds fucking vicious on here. Bringing back that fantastic higher register scream that I fell in love with on albums like "
Degenerate". I'm picking up some sort of subtle video game concept on their side too, from song titles like, "
Pitfall" and "
Kill Screen". Plus the 8-bit sound effect on "
Max 330 Mega Pro Gear Spec". Welcome back, Extortion! On the flip side, we get Cold World, who definitely hold their own against Extortion's side and make a very good companion band for this release. There's a strong 90's fastcore influence with these guys; ridiculous song craftsmanship with riffs spilling over each other and vocals roaring desperately to keep up with it all. I love the drum work on this, excellent precision and solid blasting. The track "
Boardhole" is fastcore nirvana, if I saw them play that live I would go ape shit. I'm definitely on the look out for this bands past releases now. Buy this if you can, it's a winner of a split.
Rating: 8/10
~VII
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