Album Review: ACxDC – G.O.A.T. (Prosthetic Records)

Powerviolence/grind punks ACxDC is celebrating their 21st birthday with their sophomore full-length album G.O.A.T. (Greatest of All Time), released April 26th, 2024, via Prosthetic Records.

Happy 21st birthday to ACxDC! Let’s celebrate by losing our f**king s**t to their cathartically chaotic new album, G.O.A.T. A seventeen-track bout of eye-watering and ear-bleeding noise that combines the best (and worst) of powerviolence, grind, and punk. It’s a beast of a record, that much is going to be clear from just a cursory listen, but what might surprise is that it’s darker and deeper than most would expect.

On this album ACxDC deal with darker subjects that reflect reality, filtered through elements of sneering sarcasm, tongue in cheek humour, and general rage at the state of the world. Here, ACxDC deal with failure, imposter syndrome, and self-doubt. All from a highly aggressive standpoint. It’s the kind of thinking, the kind of creative output, that makes the album title an apt one.

Don’t want to dig too deeply and just lose your mind to some unforgiving speed and heaviness? Fear not, that is still very much the focus of this album. Across the album, you’ll feel the battering that ACxDC are dishing out. From the moment it starts, it’s absolute carnage and there is no let-up at any stage. You mind find yourself looking forward to the gaps between tracks, just so you can take a quick and desperate gulp of breath.

When speeding viciousness comes at you this thickly, it won’t take long for the mind to become desensitised to it. Yet, that never really happens here. ACxDC are the masters of keeping the album fresh and interesting through a variety of styles. They all might have ‘heaviness’ in common, but they all offer up enough stylistic and dynamic differences to focus the mind. Before you know it, the album is over (no track goes over two minutes) and you’re left panting through exhaustion and pain.

The compulsion to just start it all over again though is very strong. The level of barbarity on show, the undeniably talented approach of ACxDC to it, and how darkness can be so vibrant, is where the appeal comes from. This is the sound of glorious pandemonium. Greatest of all time, indeed.

ACxDC – G.O.A.T. Track Listing:

1. Wanna See A Dead Body?
2. Boxed In
3. Clout Chaser
4. Greatest Of All Time
5. Mortality Salience
6. At Midnight
7. Into The Void
8. Definition Of Insanity
9. Fairweather
10. Thot Police
11. Flying Pigs
12. Inside Joke
13. Vested Interest
14. Karoshi
15. Feed The Blade
16. Goatcore
17. Expired

Links

Bandcamp | Facebook | Twitter