PORTION CONTROL SLUG ALBUM PORTION-CONTROL.NET RELEASE: MAY 31, 2008 REVIEW: JUNE 6, 2008

Remember the films we all used to watch as kids of auto collision tests, remember how the wall never seemed fazed by the impact? "Slug" is that wall, boys and girls. I've heard talk of hard rhythmic electronics before but Portion Control are it. End of story. Rather than raise the pulse after the triumph of "Filthy White Guy", England's finest have opted to get down and dirty. Incredibly dirty. The opening track "Roast" sounds like a bag of tricks being emptied before our ears with it's clattery dischordant nonchalant frankness. You expect build up, you expect tension to mount but PC clobber you directly with a concrete block called "Infant" instead. It seems straight ahead, the rhythms oscillating between crackling saturation and pure electro ingenuity but once the song "Global" gets underway all hell has been unleashed. Technological overhaul and viciously unsympathetic audio assault are the order of the day.

Quite unashamedly, Portion Control take your expectations and literally chew them to bits, they keep the boot to your neck all throughout "Slug", an album that is heavy... heavy as anything I've ever heard before. There's no excess fiddling going on in these songs, niceties are bound up and gagged in the constricted taut landscapes Whybrew and Piavanni send out with brutal almost sadistically efficient glee. Uncompromising is not the word which best suits their new album, ruthless is not either. Unique. That is the best description of the aptly named "Slug", which like a dose of lead poisoning gets into your system and will not leave. No one sounds like them, no one approaches what they do. In the field of pure electronic manipulation and innovation, Portion Control stand tall casting their shadow over the entire musical landscape. "Sick Man" defines them as no other song they've released yet has, it encapsulates the PC ethos of saturation, overload and refusal to bend or bow to anyone. The sub bass alone could cause tectonic upheaval.

"Heavyweight" is a syncopated monster that flexes it's snarling barbs showering the listener in aural shrapnel, you feel like you've gone ten rounds with a goddamn porcupine by the time this tune ends. "Unrest" throws you out in the street by virtue of the muscular beats which serve as a brilliant foil for Dean's strident call to arms. Imagine being beaten against a retaining embankment fashioned only from steel rebar, concrete and jagged, exposed porcelain shards. This is it, kiddies. Stand up and be counted. You feel exhausted by the time "Slug" is done having it's way with you, as though you've been the one who has had to adapt to it's requirements and not the other way around. Portion Control demand your attention, their urgency is both arresting and immediate. Hold on for dear life.

PETER MARKS