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Following a couple years of dormancy after a series of tours in support of their well received full length that spanned various continents, PDX punk heroes LONG KNIFE return with five tracks of sonic venom in the form of the "SEWERS OF BABYLON" EP. The recipe remains the same, the delivery just as biting, and the addition of Keith Testerman on drums (WARCRY, LEBENDEN TOTEN, HELLSHOCK, etc) adds even more to the already savage total package. Portland's 21st century Kings of Punk are still alive and well. Each record comes in a glue pocket sleeve with full color cover art by Dennis Dread.
Our take: Brand new 5-songer from this Portland hardcore band, and their first since changing drummers. The new guy is Keith from Hellshock, and while the band’s overall approach hasn’t changed much (if at all), the drumming does seem a little more in the pocket, giving the band an even more anthemic edge than they had before. Anyway, the first thing that anyone ever comments on with Long Knife is how much they sound like Poison Idea, but I think that the ubiquity of that comparison really does the band a disservice… it’s not like they’re just collaging together parts of old PI tracks into new songs, and that’s particularly apparent on this EP. There are a lot of little twists and turns that push the band’s sound in different directions, whether it’s the double-bass drums on “Citadel,” the noisy guitar solo at the end of “Bastards of Bedlam,” or the combo of the surf-y main riff and killer 60s-style organ solo on my favorite track, “The Tower.” I mean, if you do like Long Knife because they sound so much like Poison Idea (particularly in the vocal department) then there’s no way that you’ll be disappointed with Sewers of Babylon, but if you expect and want a little more than that I think you’ll be even more pleased with this ripper of an EP.