Under Pressure

Black Bile

[3/5]

Under Pressure’s Black Bile is a pure blast of burly ’80s hardcore, pulling from tried-and-true influences like Negative Approach and Poison Idea. It’s a hard, fast and rocking formula that sometimes brings to mind fellow Canucks Fucked Up (although less dynamic and more economical with song lengths). When the band kick out the jams on this eight-song “full-length,” each tends to run little more than two minutes. However, the appropriately titled closer “The Last” is a smothering, eight-minute decrescendo. Not that Under Pressure are going all classic-rock wankery, though: Black Bile is about as “straight-up” and “no frills” as those warm and familiar phrases can be, but raucous and vile enough to be anything but comforting. (ESCAPE ARTIST) Brian Shultz