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'Signals from Outer Space' is Violent Party's second album. Featuring six tracks of absolute dissonance and leaving the guitar behind, Violent Party push their sound to a new extreme. Blending classic hardcore punk and steganographic signals into a circuit bent nightmare, this album is unlike anything you've ever heard before or may ever hear again.
Our take: Latest record from this Portland noise-punk band who has been releasing records since 2011. Violent Party don’t seem to have much connection to the more well-known crust / hardcore scene in Portland despite having a lot in common with some of those bands, particularly Lebenden Toten, who push at the edges of the noise-punk style in similar ways. Rather than injecting noise-punk with psychedelic space rock like LT’s most recent record, though, Violent Party seem to be moving in a noise / power electronics direction, jettisoning the guitar for this recording. While that sounds like a radical decision for a noise-punk band, it doesn’t make a ton of difference to their sound, as they still follow the standard noise-punk format of having 3/4 of the band (drums, bass, and vocals) sound like a ripping hardcore band while the remaining 1/4 makes screeching, high-pitched noise over top. The noises here feel more interesting, presumably because they’re made with more appropriate tools than a guitar. I hear some feedback-drenched samples and what sounds like manual manipulation of phaser effects, which gives Signals from Outer Space more texture than your typical noise-punk record. It’s still a “deep heads only” type of thing, though it's worth checking out if you are more progressive and open minded rather than a purist.