Are you feeling under the weather or are you not getting enough sleep? I’ve got a cure. Listen to the new LP from Chicago grind/hardcore outfit Sick / Tired. It’s better for chasing away colds than chicken noodle soup and orange juice, and the loudness and restorative rhythms can do wonders if you set your alarm clock to Dissolution. The group certainly knows how to make an entrance, for good or for ill: the opening song “Savage Man / Savage Beast” is a blast of seven seconds of squalor, and its follow-up, the title track (composed by Merzbow), is precisely one minute of white noise. Not kidding. It’s like a shot to the head. While it certainly is a way to begin things, it’s not the most inviting way. Gladly, though, the record picks up from there and becomes — dare I say — a bit more normal. Or as normal as can be when the band is flying at 800 miles per hour and pushing the limits in terms of speed and thrash.
For that reason, there isn’t really what you’d call an obvious high point – Dissolution, after its opening salvos, works as a straight arrow of sound. This is an album meant to be listened to as an album. In fact, the songs butt up against each other. There are glimmers of things within the songs, though, that make them interesting: “Descent” slows things down for a millisecond for a very Black Sabbath-y guitar break. And, despite the fact that most of these song are either mere seconds long or about a minute in length, Sick / Tired do stretch things out a bit: “In Articulo Mortis” runs for more than five minutes and shifts tempos and gears in an appealing fashion, and the song certainly owes something to punk rock, believe it or not. So, overall, while Dissolution may be blemished, there are neat things happening here. It’s worthy of a listen for anyone interested in metal. Just be sure to bring your ear plugs for the opening songs.