‘The Beginning & End Of Cereal Killer” is the band’s first full length album to date and also their last release since 2016’s, “Demo’s EP”. The album was recorded over six weeks of tracking in the famous Geelong studios, “The Barracks”, before calling upon mastermind Mikey Young to sail his yacht across the bay and put his much practised mixing techniques into full effect. The result is mind-blowing. Cereal Killer gained worldwide success in 2016 after their headline performances at Glastonbury and Coachella festivals where they blew away hundred’s of thousands of adorning fans and reached international stardom. The band have not performed since 2018’s Old Bar show on August 17, in which a predicted 7,000 screaming fans crammed into the building. However, rumours of an album launch on August the 3rd this year are emerging, and tickets are predicted to sell out within the first hour of sale. "The Beginning & End Of Cereal Killer” will be out on all digital platforms from June 28. There will also be a limited edition vinyl pressing available in Australia through Anti Fade Records and in UK/EU through Drunken Sailor Records. "Sometimes a band’s lineup speaks for itself, but when that lineup includes members of new wave-styled synth abusers Ausmuteants, bratty garage monsters Wet Blankets and stoner riffmeisters Orb… well, you might just find yourself wondering what you’re letting yourself in for. The answer? Punk rock, dummy. Cereal Killer’s main stock-in-trade is good ol’ stoopid hardcore like Flipper used to make… or occasionally like Bl’ast used to make… or the Circle Jerks… look, point is, they make a full-pelt, full-speed-ahead racket and it’s an absolute fucking delight. ‘The Beginning And End of Cereal Killer’ is 13 tracks and 24 minutes of deliberately dumb-as-fuck old-skool hardcore. Vocals – usually shouted, often screamed, rarely sung – are drenched in distortion, while the band alternate between rickety full-throttle punk, proto-metallic breakdowns and the odd moment of palette-cleansing ambient texture. You know, the stuff that makes for a killer punk record. What’s more, it’ll make you feel like your parachute just got ripped wide open by acid rain as you hurtle towards jagged rocks below… but even more exciting than that sounds. ‘Should Punks Be Allies’, they ask, and you may idly wonder whether this is one of the big questions ‘the scene’ (whatever that is) should be posing itself. Difficult to care about stuff like that, though, when you could just stick this on your turntable and pogo a few new holes in your floor. Not sure where the cereal fits in, but this sure is killer. Will Fitzpatrick. Our take: Australia’s Cereal Killer has been kicking around for a few years now, most notably producing a vinyl collection of demos on Neck Chop and Anti-Fade. Now they’re back with their first 12” vinyl. While Cereal Killer features members of bands like Ausmuteants and Wet Blankets, they’re very much a hardcore band. However, they take most of their inspiration from bands on the more punk end of the hardcore spectrum… I’m thinking Circle Jerks, Zero Boys, Minor Threat, and the like. The riffs are catchy and straightforward, but the drumming is what takes them over the top. Like Jeff Nelson or Lucky Lehrer, Cereal Killer’s drummer is all about dramatic accents and tight, technical fills that, rather than weighing the songs down with show-off moves, elevate them from solid punk tunes to jump-out-of-your-seat blasts of excitement. This is timeless hardcore punk that would have stood out in the 80s or at the height of the No Way Records era, moments when this style was much more in vogue. Even if Cereal Killer isn’t quite in step with the zeitgeist, I’m happy to throw this on in the here and now.
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