Botch Job
Sharp Weapons make heavy music. What kind of heavy is up for debate but the nine songs contained on their debut album album are far from shy and retiring. The Kansas City quartet’s self titled album does not traverse many moods or possess a wide dynamic range but the variation there is makes for a better record than your average hardcore bruisers can knock out, that’s beyond debate.
Chugging palm muted riffs abound from opener Eat Another Chord to GDH as Sharp Weapons lean on harmony over melody. There’s a Swedish death metal vibe to Eat Another Chord and Brilliant Normal brings the pick slides, knotted riffs and punk energy to the proceedings. Elsewhere, there are strains of noise rock, sludge and groove metal. Rabbit Hole and Consume are particularly concise distillations of Sharp Weapons’ approach. Vocalist Jimmy Wing shreds his throat on every song here and on Acid.F--K’s coda conjures distant screams akin to Chip King’s blood curdling utterances with sludge miserablists The Body. The three instrumentalists have played together for over ten years in various guises and it shows as across the album they never sound anything less than one, unified band.
Nine tracks and couple of tracks at 3 minutes or less represent a relatively parsimonious approach to recording in these times. The result is that Sharp Weapons’ songs never last beyond their effectiveness.