The San Diego band Retox features the Locust’s bassist Justin Pearson on vocals, and shares much of that band’s extremity, dissonance, and whiplash tempos, but in a more straightforwardly hardcore vein. Their new album, Beneath California, will be released next week, but you can stream the whole thing right here on DM.

If The Locust isn’t a helpful reference, you might want to look them up; they’ve been around for over 20 years, and if you’re into any kind of extreme rock, you might find much to enjoy there. Originally exponents of powerviolence—a ‘90s mini-genre that sought to push hardcore to its own nth degree with absurd brevity, lightning-fast drums, and brutal rawness that owes much to grindcore while intentionally steering clear of metal tropes—the Locust eventually augmented that aggression with the unpredictable time signature changes of math rock and the squared-off synth textures of much early ‘80s New Wave. Their stage presentation also diverges wildly from doctrinaire hardcore—they perform in creepy form-fitting insect uniforms. If powerviolence has a DEVO, it’s the Locust.

More after the jump…