30,000 MONKIES

Are Forever CONSOULING SOUNDS

Sludgy, art-noise antics from the Belgian badlands

When a salmon-pink album sleeve features both an impenetrably spiky logo and shiny gold costumery you’d be right to expect something off the beaten track, though it takes

30,000 Monkies a little while get there. Starting with a punishingly annoying sample and some post-metal meandering suggests the band are trying to get our backs up, but before long the weirdness seeps in to disorientate via a puzzling mix of sludge slogs, angular dissonance, scraping rasps and arty electronic burbles. Uniting proceedings is a meanspirited sense of play: not something you’d necessarily expect from an album this crushingly heavy, but one that works extremely well given the peculiar circumstances. ■■■■■■■■■■

FOR FANS OF: Will Haven, Cherubs, Melvins

ALEX DELLER