Armed For Apocalypse: The Road Will End

Californians return to beat down some more

You can trust Louder Our experienced team has worked for some of the biggest brands in music. From testing headphones to reviewing albums, our experts aim to create reviews you can trust. Find out more about how we review.

After the release of this Chico-based band’s 2009 debut, Defeat – featuring present and ex-members of Will Haven, Brain In A Cage and The Abominable Iron Sloth – they went silent. But what’s that? Shit, it’s The Road Will End and it sounds like a ginormous dinosaur rumbling over the hills.

This four-headed monolith salutes and creates the sounds that follow in the wake of vibration-rich, low-tensile piano wire guitar strings, drums firing off like cannons, bass buzzing like the engines entering Canal Curve at Liverpool’s Aintree and, in guitarist/vocalist Kirk Williams, a man for whom apparently hate is a hobby and who seems to get off on gargling bleach after throat surgery.

Focus all those elements on an aesthetic with a forehead that’s gradually sloping as Crowbar, Meshuggah, Burst, Benea Reach and Admiral Angry albums get spun at your weekly basement bare-knuckle boxing match and there you have it.