Written by Carcassbomb
Filth Is Eternal – Love Is A Lie, Filth Is Eternal
Hardcore Punk from Seattle, Washington
Released August 27th, 2021
8/10
BODY CHAOS. BLOODY JAW.
Some of you may have been familiar with the hardcore band Fucked & Bound and their belligerent floor pounding live shows. If you’ve wondered where they went to, they’ve rebranded as Filth Is Eternal. This is their first album with the new name and it is appropriately titled Love Is A Lie, Filth Is Eternal. We listen to a lot of metallic hardcore and mathcore on Noob Heavy, but today we’re listening to punk side of hardcore punk!
Immediately off the bat with the opening track “On The Rake” the punk tone is set with speedy clean drum tones and thrashy guitars before the vocals resembling an unhinged amalgamation of Tim Armstrong, Brody Dalle and Henry Rollins. There’s a good variety between singing, shouting and screaming covering a flurry of aggressive lyrics that trusts no one in this dogshit dumbfuck mans world we live in. Get ready for a lyric heavy review because these are some of the best written songs I’ve heard all year, it’s concentrated spite. I particularly appreciate “Wigsplitter”:
You
With the pretty face
Whole world under your feet
Crushing
Should leave well enough alone
Should leave
I won’t play with a short stick
Seer
With their daddy’s scope
I don’t mess with them
Bleeder
With their daddy’s throne
I don’t mess with them
It’s not all fun and games with punk rock bangers though, there’s some legitimately heavy parts of the album like on “The Ritual” which besides the shrieking and pinch harmonics, has a really neat chuga chuga breakdown. The majority of the tracks are below two minutes and get right to the point, they say their violent piece and then move on to the next memory, the next target. All but the album finale “Filth Is Eternal” which rides the end with a four minute headbanger.
This is about as heavy as you can get with a “rock” sound, and I think they achieve a lot. They’re the grindcore of punk rock. It’s not entirely surprising that the vocalist, Lisa Mungo, is in other projects He Whose Ox Is Gored and a live performing member of Daughters. She has a lot of control over her voice and excellent lyric delivery. Even more so on this new album than on their previous album Suffrage which I very much enjoyed a few years back. That was more of a bludgeoning assault whereas Love Is A Lie, Filth Is Eternal has more of a finesse performance to it.
The essence of the band is still very much musical catharsis exploring feminism and trauma. It’s impactful messaging elevated by the various kinds of vocal acrobatics. Especially reading the lyrics which I can’t help but share here, they’re so vulnerable in their emotion but also pointed like a weapon. There is no hesitation behind this trigger. This is “Nosebleed”:
You’d think they’d want to know me better
For all the hands upon my body
And not a trace of love left the next day
I’m turning
On these hands
I’m slipping through
Your loose grip
I’ve got a taut chain
A bright light
And that’s where the story ends
In the Black Box
With the transcripts
You’d think they’d want to know me better
There’s a Black Box
Where the story lives
This new chapter for the band is a great step forward and I’m keen to keep following their music into the future and exploring their other projects. They’ve done a great job of translating their past chaotic live nature into a writhing, larger than life studio sound. If you see this band is coming to your town, do not miss out because this is one of the many underground hardcore bands I’ve always wanted to see but I live in Australia, nowhere fucking near them.
If you want something raw and aggressive but also want a break from straight up metal and metal infused hardcore, then look no further than Filth Is Eternal.
8/10
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