Resistance [CD]

Purest Form pulls visceral dance-punk music from modern-day angst and unrest. The newly formed Los Angeles trio - vocalist Story Beeson, guitarist/programmer Madi Woodward, and bassist Riley Oikawa-Dahlson- draws on their respective backgrounds in hardcore bands, and a shared love of industrial and techno, splicing the intensely heavy with the playful and sensual. RESISTANCE, their debut with Dais Records, delivers a potent, 6-track anarchist assault on the system, fueled by collective anger amidst late-stage capitalism and a year of nonstop trauma in LA, from the fires to ICE. ""Resistance, less of an idea, more of an absolute action that has to be taken,"" asserts Beeson. RESISTANCE builds on the promise of their self-titled 2024 EP, a sonic blueprint that Stereogum likened to nine inch nails's Broken.RESISTANCE is more agile and charged-up, a cataclysmic set with structural jumps and hard left turns, confronting sonic and societal constructs. Serrated riffs meet fractured breakbeats, basslines, and body-quaking feedback, with nods to death metal and acid house in equal measure, all punctuated by Beeson's urgent, anthemic narration, often shouted to near-shreds. ""It's like a unification of all the music that we love and feel. And it makes sense to us. If it sounds good, we don't care where it comes from"" says Woodward. If they channeled Reznor's rawest era on their first release, here the group adds a spiritual dash of Voodoo-U, or more directly, The Prodigy, whose iconic ""Breathe"" has been covered loyally in their live sets and is captured properly in this collection for posterity.A staple of their live sets, the hard-hitting opener ""ANIMAL"" unleashes a primal impulse that is both ferocious and sexual; they set out for ""White Zombie meets Underworld"" and succeeded. ""BREAK"" is pure aggression and violent fantasy; above ascending riffs and rapid snare hits, Beeson spells out a love letter to a friendship gone psychotic, two people plotting destruction. ""Ultimately, it isn't really how I feel. I'm not saying that murder is the answer, but I am kind of tipping my hat to Luigi Mangione. He still inspires me.""At little more than a minute, ""BEYOND TERROR"" is the EP's most straightforward statement. ""CALL IT WHAT YOU LIKE / IT'S GENOCIDE,"" Beeson screams with guttural force, flanked by distortion and crushing drum machine kicks that accelerate to an explosive stutter. ""I've been very frustrated, seeing people who are unable to see Palestine for what it is,"" she explains. RESISTANCE is filled with moments that embody dissatisfaction with the status quo and a simmering desire to both destroy and connect. ""SOMETIMES I THINK I COULD / TAKE THE GAS AND THE BULLETS / GRENADE AND PULL IT,"" Beeson imagines in talk-rapped verse across the screeches and breakbeats of ""MORE"" before turning the focus to romance (""GIVE ME THE DRUG THAT FEELS LIKE YOU""). Their mission is rightfully summed up in ""BASS RESISTANCE"", a scorching