Death Index: Civilized by a Lie 12"

DEATH INDEX (Carson Cox from Merchandise / Neon Bluid + Marco Rapisarda from Psico Galera / La Piovra / Smart Cops), returns with a conglomeration of fringe punk experiments, combining industrial rock, chromatic sorcery, and the language of the first wave of American and Italian Hardcore. The band's creative conscience ranges extensively, from industrial to pop, from Crass Records to Wax Trax!, from modern to primitive. ‘Civilized By A Lie’ is the culmination of the group both defining and rejecting traditional notions of the what you expect of rock’n’roll.

Our take: Death Index is a 2-person project featuring Carson Cox from Merchandise and Marco Rapidsarda from Smart Cops, La Piovra, and Psico Galera. They released a 12” on Deathwish Records back in 2016 and did a US tour, and now seven years later they’re back with a new record and a fairly new sound. If you liked that first record, the core elements are still here—drum machines and hardcore punk—but they’re subsumed into a much richer, more varied sound. “No Cure for Madness” and “Human / Machinery” have the big pop hooks of the best Merchandise songs, while “Spirit” has the tense, “where is this going?” feeling of Throbbing Gristle’s early records. “D.O.G. II” has the closest sound to the digitalized hardcore of Death Index’s first record, and many tracks incorporate the raw, heavy dance music vibes of the 90s Wax Trax scene. It all sounds very three-dimensional and very free, especially against the background of an underground punk scene in which so many bands seem hemmed in by their self-imposed aesthetic boundaries. Civilized by a Lie may be a little harder to get a handle on because of its heterogeneity, but I think that wideness of scope is also one of its biggest strengths.