Carpe Diem Pressure Bound EP

Carpe Diem 'Pressure Bound EP' (Thrashwax, 2003)

This is probably the only gatefold EP I have in the collection, but I may yet be proven wrong. The cover is excellent and reminds me of the proposed cover for the doomed Under Thorns demo. The proposal more or less brought that band to an end, but it was a sick beast and deserved to die. I'm glad I've been in two excellent bands, one bad one isn't the end of the world!

The cover is reminiscent of First World War propaganda; the tyrant death is holding the world in his deadly clutches, the world which has been engineered into a primed grenade and the inner sleeve has a hilarious, Carnivore style, back story which ties all the song titles tenuously together in broken English.

I think this was purchased from a Distro at a Grinding Halt gig put on by the wonderful Cold Dead Hands collective. Or it could have been at a Filth of Mankind gig hosted by Crazy Col. Unfortunately, when you add Budvar to punk on a school night things tend to blur. This was in the days before the thought of going to a mid-week gig filled me with dread. Ahhh work, how I look forward to another three decades of your loving embrace!

'Pressure Bound' was definitely recommended to me and I can see why as it's pretty top notch heavy hardcore. Lovely fat downtuned riffs, stolen from Slayer and Bolt Thrower, battle with Low Countries hardcore to produce a nigh on perfect mixture of hateful intensity including dual vocals which cover both the crusty barking and metalcore bases. Again I have to mention a certain Dave Walker in regard to the vocals, as the main vocalist is a blistering lung buster very much in the vein of one of my, in case you hadn't guessed, favourites.

The distilled anger and energy on this EP is a joy to behold and I will ensure that a certain Mr Finch is fully briefed if he is not already an aficionado. Perhaps these Finns were contemporaries of fellow Scandinavian metallic hardcore bruisers Lash Out, but it's very hard to find out anything about this band. One thing's for sure, Carpe Diem would have destroyed many a venue of they'd been around in 1998 and were on Good Life Recordings. Great stuff.

Peace