SNAFU - Present Day Plague (Self-Released)

SNAFU is a hardcore group hailing from Detroit, Michigan, with a mission to “bring you to your knees, genuflecting before the almighty power of the riff.” With almost twenty songs clocking in a total of just forty minutes in length, the four piece bring an explosive, brutal force to the mix on their new album, Present Day Plague. Their sound hearkens back to the earliest paradigms of the genre, while adding a modern sense of tension and unease. The production is as muddy and gritty as the melodies themselves, and underneath the walls of breakneck guitars is a guttural stomach punch of demonic basslines and drums.

Present Day Plague features guest appearances from Shawn Knight of Childbite and Jason Navarro of The Suicide Machines, and the whole album feels a bit like a twisted celebration of hardcore, thrash, and punk in general from the blistering, in-your-face assault of “Her Dark Past” to grimy sludge of “A Trade to Abduct.” It’s a darker and heavier sound than anything they’ve done before, and it finds the band with a weary yet maniacal feeling of anger and cynicism. Present Day Plague is an excellent follow up to 2013’s Fear The Future, and will be released August 8th.