Rudimentary Peni

No More Pain EP

[3.5/5]

More than 25 years have passed since outsider artist/anarcho frontman Nick Blinko first declared war on music with his crusty goth-punk trio, Rudimentary Peni. No More Pain, the band’s latest EP, finds the band’s original snarl and buzz well intact (see 1995’s Pope Adrian 37th Psychristiatric for a near-inaccessible example of “not intact”). The Blinko musical doctrine still centers upon the conjoined boom of monochromatic power-chord arrangements intertwining with Grant Matthews’ throbbing bass lines washed over by Blinko’s bellowing growls about cheery subjects like hearses, death and dying (check out 1981’s Farce EP and 1983’s Death Church for the band’s truly definitive statements). No More Pain delivers fast-paced, near-Death Church caliber songwriting, though the lyrics aren’t as polemic. “A Handful Of Dust” and “Prayer For The Unborn” are the EP’s highlights, while the oddly merry “Pachelbel’s Canon In E” sounds totally out of place. (OUTER HIMALAYAN) Casey Lynch