The debut album by
Alarmist is subtitled "Get Rich or Try Dying," but this is about as far from
50 Cent-style gangsta rap as one is likely to find. At one point in "Dangerous Places," co-lead screamer Eva Pox yelps, "Melt Banana! I wanna go to Japan!" and a more concise definition of this Portland-based quartet's sound is difficult to find.
Evil Works is straight-up Japanese-style noise punk, with all of the free jazz-inspired randomness, screamed vocals (by Pox and James Squeaky) and atonal, arrhythmic instrumental freakouts that implies. Though not nearly as extreme as the most outré Japanese noise outfits (or fellow travelers like Canada's grandfathers of the style the
Nihilist Spasm Band), since there's still a certain level of musicality to the skeletal guitar-drums lineup,
Alarmist are still not for the faint of heart. At the very least, they deserve all the comparisons that the comparatively bubblegummy
Yeah Yeah Yeahs ever got to no-wave pioneers Teenage Jesus & the Jerks. ~ Stewart Mason