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Originally released as a small run demo under the apt title “We Are Going To Kill You” Cicada’s debut is a fierce and visceral slab. Three tracks of savage and unsettling hardcore punk that channel the growl and gloom of United Mutation, mixed with Cheetah Chrome Motherfuckers at their most rabid. Lightning fast, punctuated by brief moments of psychedelia, and knuckle biting all the way through. Essential!
Our take: Here’s another repress of a Richmond band’s demo that sold out instantly the first time around, thankfully upgraded to a red vinyl flexi courtesy of Total Peace Records. While there are fewer than 4 minutes of music on this disc, Cicada packs a lot in a small space. Starting with the buzz of the band’s namesake insect, feedback swells and the full band enters with a mid-paced stomp, the tempo building until a dramatic pause, the guitar player quickly signaling the riff before the full band throws you in the meat grinder. Cicada’s brand of hardcore is sinister and moody, the vocals in the demonic United Mutation school while the riffs dance around dark, complex chords that give Cicada a richly textured sound. The rhythms, often frantic, are similarly ornate, weaving a couple nods to Poison Idea into their darting lunges. Then you’re out before you know it, the band leaving us with a brief outro that sounds like a 4-track version of Goblin. There’s so much here that I’d love to see Cicada expand on, but there’s something magical about everything that’s captured in this brief tornado of sound.