by Jacob Dempsey (@satandoestweet)
You’re hung over, pissed off, the rents due, the car won’t start, and Donald Trump is still President. Life can feel overwhelming sometimes; in fact, it can be downright shit. The world feels like it's coming to an end. Well, at least Impalers wrote the soundtrack for it.
Cellar Dweller is the third full length appearance for the Austin, Texas based group. A lineup that consists of Texan heavyweights such as Victor Gutierrez, Mike Sharp, Chris Ulsh, Juan Carlos, and Cody Cox – all seasoned musicians with bands such as Power Trip, Mammoth Grinder, Hatred Surge, and Glue on their resumes – it’s no wonder this record brings forward the perfect blend of unrelenting fast-paced punk with the ever so trashy riffs of metal.
Within the first second, Cellar Dweller kicks itself through your front door and for the next seventeen minutes relentlessly brings unwavering, brutal, and riff filled aggression. Better find a cellar because this hellish-apocalypse-inducing album contains songs addressing all basis of society's downfall with such titles as “Future Cops,” “Nazi Burning Man,” and “Technology.” The confronting ideals laced with the onslaught of no breaks makes for a record that feels like you’re being suffocated by sound, entranced and cannot escape, merely at the mercy of the splitting guitar and hypnotic drumming, only to be thrown over the edge by the forward pressing vocals. I found myself almost unable to listen to a song on its own, as if the album were a seamless overarching bedlam paired together to create a singular song.
The record is pure adrenaline fueled speed (as previously stated only sixteen minutes in length), which is no surprise for the genre. With tones that reference and mix early D-beat scenes of Sweden and elements of Japan's’ LSD guitar tones, the record still maintains its own authenticity and genuine amount of well deserved recognition for its chthonic downbeat punk that seems to take on a perspective of genuine malice and disinterest in society. For what it is, it undoubtedly does not disappoint and is easily one of the better records to release in 2017 for D-beat punk.