The booklet for FIGHT AMP's new album "Hungry for Nothing" opens up into a poster, a gimmick has been extremely underutilized. The poster is of coffins reaching for the Moon while being pursued by shadow-demons climbing their entrails. More or less. Beats that pink PEARL JAM holding hands go-team-go crap; though the band's sound does nod toward the heavier end of the grunge spectrum (including TAD, that walking embodiment of grunge heaviness). Whatever grunge became, it gained its popularity because it bled authenticity; and these guys cut from that same vein.

The lyrics are pure primal anger therapy; despite the cover art, FIGHT AMP's inspiration is the personal, not the fantastical. And the personal sucks, as fragmentary imagery of dirt, death, psychological turmoil, entropy and taxidermy make clear. My favorite line is the evocative non sequitur, "Breakdown to pixels so everyone can see / Won't you be fucked without electricity??" The songs rarely differentiate but the steady atmosphere of slow-grinding, unremitting, downtuned groove carnage is effectively maintained throughout. Think the post-hardcore crunch of bands like HELMET (they could do a nice cover of "Iron Head"), UNSANE and HARKONEN but more drawn out and distorted, further down the scale from punk toward the metal end of heaviness. The lean thirty-minute album length does nod to the focused assault of hardcore, however, as well as the band's overall style of finely-crafted precision fuzz battering.

Buy this album for the poster at the very least. And enjoy the accompanying noisecraft as a worthy soundtrack. Also a nice bonus: the enhanced CD features a video showcasing the band's dingy basement roots. And in case you're not sure what to do with the visceral energy the disc imparts, look to the song title "Get High and Fuck." There is wisdom here!

- Shragge

OFFICIAL SITE: myspace.com/fightamp

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