Parasitic Twin

Dark d-beat outfit Hive introduce their first album with a blast of fury, and harsh, Discharge-inspired beats punctuates a lot of their songs. Further into the album, however, a colder atmosphere rises out of the depths to make itself heard on many tracks, including the title. They're more blackened than their genre's ancestors, but they're also a good deal more introspective. For the most part, you get a dirty sound with sufficiently harsh vocals to qualify for death metal, to the background of a wall of noise playing simple chord patterns harmonized with a wailing lead. But once we get to Gated Community, the beat has slowed down and the riffing is crunchier and less melodic. Especially interesting is the slow, echoing ringing of the guitars in the title track and in Common Ancestor, a side of the band completely different from the straightforward hammering delivered before. Even when Foot Binding returns to a thrashing pace, the doomy influence of the first slow chords seems to linger in the ultra-heavy delivery. Other than these two tracks, the band mostly keeps things pretty tightly aligned with fast, dirty songs of the sort d-beat is best known for. The final track, in which the bass gets the most prominent role, modifies this somewhat; in between the crusty riffing and the hoarse shouting are different types of riffs: Slow, crushing ones that finally bring the album to a dragging halt. Hive produces a competent offering in Parasitic Twin. I expected their "dark d-beat" moniker to provide a bit more than just harsher vocals and heavier riffing to go with a decent d-beat album, but what I got wasn't a disappointment either.