Liverpool Sound and Vision Rating * * * *

There is something about the raw sound that gives the listener a sense of purpose, a profound delight that what they are hearing is not only from the heart, but from the soul as well, it is the guttural instinct, the call of the survivor as they swim against the tide, away from the shore, because that way they know lays the cannibals of mediocrity, and they have no intention of being served up as a second course in anyone’s dietary or audio process.

The raw governance of a group, to lay down a set of undiluted rules and strict observances may rankle the ears of some, but for others it is not about the sweetness of life placed before an audience, but a truth exposed, digging away at a scab, not caring if it bleeds again because the satisfaction of the process is one of continual healing, not one of  therapy, but soothing pain and in Namazu’s new E.P. Ice 800 that glorious sense of aural barbarism coated in merciful strength is wild, unyielding, dramatic, conspiratorial, and filled with energetic rage that hits the spot and with no illusions of grandeur taking up space where it is not wanted, never needed.

The five tracks that make up the E.P., the intensity of the opening reveal In Like Flynn, the E.P. title track of Ice 800, The White Wolf, the incredible Carl Sagan, and Okinawa Wives are firm and stern, they are Punk and loose, and they rally as if they are tennis balls being fired from an automatic cannon on high alert and insistent on taking down the beige and the ungrateful and the permanently dull.

Framed in the heavy compassion of its genre, of heroes and inspirations such as Black Flag and Black Sabbath, Severin Allgood, Samuel Hendricks, Adrian Lewis, and Eric Fortenbery inflict groove and thoughtful sympathy for uniqueness, of being enraged at a period of time that admires charity towards the bland.

An unsubtle cool that rises and pounds with every beat, Ice 800 is the basis of rebellion, and it is appreciated.

Ian D. Hall