Brain Tourniquet

You know when you see a record and on paper it just ticks all the boxes? Yeah, well... that.

Brain Tourniquet is (or was - not sure if they're still going - come to think of it, is any band actually 'going' in 2021?) a band featuring Connor (singer of Protester / drummer of Red Death) on vocals, some other dude who also plays in both those bands, and some other dude too. The debut 7" was put out by Painkiller Records and contains 10 songs, 7 of which are less than one minute long, with the other three being 1, 2 and 3 minutes long each. It came out in 2019 and completely escaped my attention at the time, but I came across it recently for a good price so couldn't really say no.

So 'Brain Tourniquet' just so happens to be the title of a song by Neanderthal. If the artwork on the cover and labels didn't give you a clue, the band cite their influences as No Comment, Crossed Out and Infest... and a little Black Flag. I'm not sure if the genre really still exists these days, but this one should definitely be filed in your power violence box. So much so, in fact, that I was surprised not to see the Slap-A-Ham logo on the back cover.

Anyway, as I mentioned, this ticks all the boxes on paper. In reality though, it's good... but as long as it's not too often. I haven't played this one as many times as other recent Painkiller releases (Rated X, Heavy Discipline) simply because it's too much. I mean, I know I'm getting old, but I seriously feel like I need a rest after listening to this one. Haha. As ever with this kind of stuff, there are times when this is just the ticket. If you're feeling majorly pissed off then this is pretty much the perfect 10 minute therapy.