If your problem is happiness, or just a general feeling of contentedness with the world, then No Solution may in fact be the solution. In ten songs, eleven minutes and twelve inches, Jackals could turn fucking Mickey Mouse into Robert Smith (Faith/Pornography Robert Smith, not “Love Cats” Robert Smith).
Affirmative, anthemic posi-core this is not. These Norwich, UK-spawned Jackals take the Negative Approach approach to hardcore, and No Solution is venomous, oppressive, and crushingly bleak. Calling to mind the savage stylings of American contemporaries Hoax, Jackals rip through track after track of explosive distorted fury with a strong eighties hardcore tinge, filtered through three decades worth of destroyed vocal cords.
Jackals manage to pack this bitter pill with enough flavour to make it ever so slightly palatable, mixing the upbeat power chord fury and hardcore haranguing with flickers of post-punk dissonance (check the propulsive bass-work, piercing feedback and otherworldly vocal echoes in “Manipulation”), moments of earth-rattling sludge (see the elephantine opening chords that herald “Right To Protest” or the death march outro to “Pulled Under”) and pure blackened fury (any time the second vocalist opens his mouth, particularly in “Pulled Under” and the title track). And besides all that they package it all into tracks that barely break the one minute mark, blink-of-an-eye sonic explosives that detonate with the manic volatility of grindcore.
Jackals’s ability to incorporate and mix up a wealth of influences and stylistic deviations whilst maintaining a consistent, unremittingly intense atmosphere is one of their greatest assets, second only to their awesome dual vocalist attack, which is what really sets them apart. Each of these tracks ricochets back and forth between the primary vocalist, who handles both the more traditional hardcore vocals and the guttural roars that accompany their sludgier moments, and the blackened shrill of the second vocalist, who may or may not be a cement mixer.
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