Phantasm - Conflict Reality 7"

Whether we like it or not, modern existence has ratcheted back up to a breakneck pace, as if the preceding few atomised years were but a figment. Thankfully, the punx have bands like Melbourne's Phantasm addressing the fragments of the past and present to help us try to make sense of this fractured reality that is often as surreal as it is intense. The rhythm section, tight and insistent, provides a mean anarcho punk-styled backbone for driving, dark contemporary hardcore riffs and some of the most memorable slathering vocals you'll hear this year. Bernie delivers in an all-too-rare tradition of punk singers who threaten to abandon the song altogether, overtaken by the compulsion to impart some ethereal knowledge of grave importance about to the listener directly - think Crucifix, Antisect and Anti-Cimex levels of being told and staying told. Listen up and learn the lessons, as disquieting as they are vital, Phantasm has in store for you. - Hardcore Victim