I knew I was going to like Extinguish's debut 7" just from looking at the cover. A tilting scrum and mass of human pain and violence. It's absolutely heinous and ambivalent towards any measure of aesthetic constraints. This is the best way to get your foot in the door when it comes to a hardcore record, as far as I'm concerned. Some people like to be shocked into amusement, and I'm one of them! Give me some music with bad taste and an even badder attitude and I will wallow in it, obscenely, like Carole Laure bathing in chocolate during that one scene from Dušan Makavejev's Sweet Movie (I'm not going to link to it, you know what I'm talking about).
Extinguish has gained some favorable, side-by-side comparisons to Scalp and Sunami as of late. Not at all surprising as they're regional cousins with Sunami and label mates with Scalp on Creator-Destructor Records. San Francisco, as you may have heard, is like a breeding pen for prize-winning, dog-toothed metallic hardcore at the moment, and Extinguish rises to the occasion of the region's growing reputation on their self-titled 7".
Pardon me while I gush over the way that the death-grooves of opener "Unconquered" constrict and coil like they're encircling sleeping prey before the lead guitar melody strikes with spine-severing lethality. "Blood Runs Cold" is a classic beatdown track where the grooves hit like a hammer while you're trapped inside a punching bag, wondering if the next volley is going to put your lights out. "Final Sin" begins with a fakeout crossover-thrash overture before taking off its flipped-brim trucker hat and putting on a soot-smeared, iron death-mask to commence whipping you with a chain. "Illusion of Power" finds a genuine fissure of thrash metal in which to spill a toxic dreg of turbulent chords and a flesh-dissolving, bubble of popping grooves. The final hammer throw comes with the punishing whirl and pivot groove stomp of "The Judge," which will mulch you into fertilizer before the gavel has a chance to fall and deliver the proclamation of your death sentence. Put this beast on and it's lights out!
