Slices’ first full length Cruising(Iron Lung Records) is an absolutely amazing piece of work. The twenty minutes of music is a great combination of hardcore, noise, and art tying rage at life and the joy in the act of creation together to create a band that has gone backwards, working from noise rock roots to hardcore punk.

Where did this come from?

The first two Slices 7”s really didn’t do it for me, to be honest. There was something to them, but the production was too sloppy. There was too much noise there for me to discern the actions of the players beyond the walls of distortion thrown up to mask the music.

The vocals on the first 7” (160oh) were too pronounced, too clear, which gave the strange effect of listening to a 45 RPM record on 33, especially on the song “Coping Mechanism.” There was a glimpse of something more on the three and a half minute long “Cave Crawl” which is a sustained set of chords that distort and destroy the instrumentation so that they’re not playing guitars or bass, but they are playing the dark heavy blanket of despair and reinforced with the squeals of feedback that fold the sounds back on themselves in your mind being not hardcore, not noise, but a dissection of the concept of instrumentation. It’s an amazing track, but the problem is that it’s surrounded by songs like “Desert March” and “Bad Mask” which aside from the doom metal prominence given to the bass is pretty much vending machine hardcore, a fun portioned slice of emotional distress.

The second 7” (Home Invasion Records) is even more tragic because beyond the amazing bookends are short sharp disintegrations rather than songs: Thirty seconds, a minute, two minutes. They’re the Anytown, USA parade of hardcore. Not bad, really, but not great. “His Presence Lingers Long After He’s Gone” which hints at the musical interplay that will be given to feedback on Cruising it’s far too pronounced and becomes uncomfortable, which is most likely the point, but it makes for difficult listening. “I Melt for No One” captures that same distressed repetition of the first EP’s “Cave Crawl” but gets to its groove a lot sooner while not being as noisy, much more straight forward.

So I was entirely prepared to suffer on Cruising while quickly teasing out the few songs I would enjoy and then proceed ignore most of the record. I done fucked up.

The production on Cruising is flawless. From the first song, “Medusa’s” clean high notes are clear and the bass is no longer an over loud anomaly, but rather it is the hidden rhythm that drives the songs towards the gaping maw of the album carrying you along like a riot. “Nightmare Man” is built around a riff you already know and feedback response that recalls the noise of “His Presence” from the second EP before it falls apart, giving way to “Red Raft” which starts with the first gear collection of atonal free association that reminds you that Slices was a noise band before it was a hardcore band. This atonal play gives way to a doom-like dirge gives way to an intense off kilter chug of a machine out of balance.

Then “John’s Public Hell” the first of two pieces of noise as track as a repeating tone builds and sustains, lulling you into a dream state before you are rudely awaken by “Floodlight” and “Robbie” as the album punches you in the throat and drags you by the hair from your bed. Leaving you with “Mike’s Insane Problem” a piano piece that’s reminds me of “A Sleep” from Litany For The Whale’s dark hardcore EP Deloris.

“Guide To Incest” is, in my opinion, the strongest song on the album. It is two minutes of circular saw blades aimed right at your throat. It’s the best elements of Ministry’s In Case You Didn’t Feel Like Showing Up compressed to two minutes of pure filth. Its melody throws your body around as scary as meth ravaged towns, as out of control as youth, as beautiful as a corpse. The shadow across the sky. “Guide to Incest” is the perfect hardcore song.

As you lay ground to paste by the album you catch your breath to “Laughing While Eating” which is a near perfect summation of Cruising. It is noisy, it is jangled, and it extends itself to near infinite space while not exhausting the patience of the listener.

If you are a fan, in any capacity, of noise or hardcore or heavier music, go find a copy of Cruising and spin it until your record player falls apart. Cruising is absolutely vital.