by Dan Goldin (@post_trash_)
There's a lingering sense of insanity that can be found throughout Missouri art punk Video Duct's latest album, Small Pets And Kitchenettes. For Kelly Ribiat however, sometimes the best way to deal with claustrophobic chaos is to simply embrace it. Become one with the insanity. The record is fraught and terrifying, noisy beyond decency, and swarming with deranged outsider carnage at every turn. While only a teenager, Ribiat is no stranger to life's struggles; battling with acceptance, surrounded by mental illness, and blistering with youthful aggression. He channels the rawest of his emotions into every spitting verse, every dense wall of jittery noise, and his own depraved sense of humor.
Small Pets And Kitchenettes' 10 tracks are not for the faint of heart. The album's abrasive demeanor and engagingly low fidelity recordings can range between spastic bursts of Devo indebted post-punk ("Loaded Woman") and unforgivingly dissonant noise ("Bus Accident") to noise rock so filthy ("Talk Like A Man"), you may just want to take a shower after listening. It's a headtrip through waking nightmares, a vision of psychotic release; catharsis in exorcism. "Skeleton Talk" does it's best to ride a thick grooving bass line, but Video Duct's world is forever collapsing, the walls closing in around swarms of impenetrable sonic density. The fact that any semblance of catchy hooks remains is amazing in its own right, but Video Duct are able to create punk both infectious ("Tell It All") and delightfully freaked out ("Baked Potato Prom"). Strap yourselves in, this one gets weird.
Video Duct's Small Pets And Kitchenettes is out December 16th via Maple Death Records.