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Reviews
Kerrang
KKKK
Terrorizer
8/10
This will blow the shit from your
arse, the phlegm from your chest and the hair from your private
parts. Hailing from Barnsley, Errander are nasty, sticky and dirty,
noisily changing tempo every four bars and sounding like it was
recorded in a pub without microphones at closing time. Bit it
matters little, for the musical quality is something else. imagine
Converge, if you will, without the fiddly bits and Will Haven
playing Murder One covers and you'd be pretty close. The vocals
are belched out like one of the zombies from '28 Days later' and
amongst the blastbeats and the nasty ferret-like riffs, Errander
manage to find a bouncy groove to rival Orange Goblin. With so
much going on this can get aurally confusing but since when was
music supposed to be easy? Great Stuff.
Metal
Hammer 7/10
South yorkshire noise oiks P>S>P
were happily doing the rounds touting their brand of chaotic grindcore,
and even had caught the attention of In At The Deep End Records,
who snapped them right up. But just as the full-length album was
about to drop, the band made the very sensible decision to change
their name to the less sony-suing Errander. The chaos remains
however, and 'The Need To Know' is a half-hour hail of hellish
musical torture, which, believe it or not is actually a compliment.
As blood and gore seeps out of every note the album gushes with
grinding riffs and visceral screams. No wonder Steve Austin of
grindcore legends Today Is The Day got on board to mix this fucker
of an record. If you miss the days when converge weren't a bunch
of hippies, then get on this.
Metal Mayhem 8.5/10
After hearing small samples of
Errander's debut release from various sources, I knew early on
that I must have this album. Only proving to further seal the
deal for me was finding out that the album was mastered by Mr.
Steve Austin (Today Is The Day, Converge) and I can say with great
conviction that "The Need To Know" more than lived up
to all my expectations. Powering its way to 33 minutes of frenzied
and heart-stopping visceral noise, Errander have crafted an album
that is not only breathtakingly complex and heavy as hell but
also a captivating and interesting offering.
On the first listen, it is easy to just get lost in a wall of
thrash riffery and ear-splitting screaming, the sound is abrasive
to say the least and in places, just downright shocking. However,
giving the album a few more listens you can start to hear the
band for what they are, a very talented group of musicians. The
instruments are tightly played and they manage to play fast and
intricately without ever sounding sloppy. The furious time changes
are superbly crafted and the brief moments of sanity like "Through
The Door" and the slow controlled intro to "Now We're
Gone" show the band can impeccably throw splashes of well-placed
melody into their sound.
"Glory Grabbers Unite" sets the tone of the album and
the initial Converge-paced intro soon breaks to a headbanging
rhythm almost guaranteed to break heads in the mosh pit. The song
then radically changes tempo with a slower middle section which
proves to be the calm before the storm as the song soon dives
back into fast-paced chugging guitars and pounding metal drums.
The album remains consistently interesting and at no point does
it become samey and unoriginal as a lot of albums currently occupying
the genre seem to suffer with. "The Need To Know" is
packed full of entrancing moments of pure mayhem contrasted with
areas of slower and a more maintained sound. This album is definitely
set to make heads turn when it is released in February.
- Matt Clifford
Rock
Midget 5/5
If there's a buzzing racket bouncing
about in your head that no band has been able to equal of late
- especially any UK talent - then give Errander a listen. Their
debut, The Need To Know, is one unforgiving barrage of a record.
The deranged quality here isn't a fluke, this might be the first
slice of twisted noise that has emerged under their current moniker
but these Barnsley boys have been kicking up a modest fuss as
P>S>P for years. You can up the ante tenfold for this new
venture though.
'Glory Grabber Unite' needs some kind of firework warning on it
and is sure to weed out any listeners that can't take fiery, fearsome
thrashcore in one second flat. 'Double Your Fun…', although
still roaring and rioting at a ridiculous pace is a marvellously
sludgy affair by comparison, 'Deadly Art Of Illusion' stop-starts
and stretches out like an unrefined and reckless Mastodon and
'Kill The Anticipation' is three minutes of grinding metal noise.
You probably could actually use it to kill anticipation.
It's not all-out gut-wretching noise all the time here. 'Glass
House Lane' climbs through rock and roll gears to get to its nastiest
point, 'Destroyed Still True' finishes with some fine sunken melodies
and a couple of subtle interludes give well-placed time for the
band, this album and your ears to catch a breath. Otherwise though
it's the sort of redline intensity that would make the folks at
Relapse Records sit up and take notice.
So it's not nice, it's not pretty and it certainly won't make
Errander megastars but, for filthy, fuzzy thrills and potentially
drowning out the noise in your head, top marks.
Insomnia
Magazine 4/5
Good, heavy, thrashy, noisy; just
the way it should be. Another one from In At The Deep End Records,
Errander are one of those bands that take a while to get used
to, but once you hit that point, you're fine from there on. Definitely
one for fans of In The Eyes Of God, Napalm Death, Will Haven and
Strapping Young Lad, and for those People who just like to fucking
thrash out! Formerly P>S>P, Errander lay down the 11 track
'(The Need To Know)', one of the best albums I've heard from unknown
bands in a while, they just seem to know how to mix the Beautiful
with the down-right-disturbing. You could be one of the people
who saw Errander as the support band of Send More Paramedics,
Today Is The Day and Terror, at which point you should have thought
'i'll go to the merch stand and see if they have any good stuff
on offer' but you probably didn't , as most bands like this always
seem to sound messy live, but believe me, the album is something
that is worth listening to over and over and so on until you can't
take it anymore.
Mass
Movement Magazine
Some of you may be familiar with
this lot from Barnsley, UK as they used to be known as P>S>P
so for those of you who know them then you know what to expect.
This is some blood curdling vocalised brutal yet melodic metal
infused hardcore. Sort of reminded me of a not so sludgy Will
haven (also with more raw vocals compared to Grady) thrown in
the bull fighting pit with Converge and Beecher (RIP) which makes
this eleven track serving clocking in at just over thirty three
minutes a must hear with tracks such as Glory Grabbers Unite,
Double Your Fun To Be Fair, Deadly Art Of Illusion and The Operators
last error as stand out points. When you add artwork by Mick Kenny
(Napalm Death) and production by Steve Austin (Today Is The Day)
then it just puts the cherry on the already sugar glazed cake.
Pete.
Die
Shellsuit Die 8/10
These guys are obviously not all
there in the head. Not just because of the music, which we’ll
get to in a minute, but because they only finally changed their
name from Purple>Sticky>Punch when Sony got a bit miffed
that it was shortened to P>S>P, and not for the much more
obvious reason that it was a bloody awful name. Obviously they
were too busy crafting this stonking debut to worry about such
petty things.
Like I said, the tunes also offer up plenty of confusion. There
are time changes, tracks that veer constantly between grind, thrash
and hardcore, not forgetting the two tracks of Deftones-like ambient
rock that neatly split the album into three. Then we have the
numerous sudden false endings in most of the songs. I can only
imagine that when played live, the entire band stop motionless
for a second, gurning like loons, then kick right back into the
noise.
Most of the tracks follow the same formula of mixing really rather
quite heavy hardcore with some thrash and a bit of groove - think
Converge meets Kylesa – but there are enough variations
to stop it just merging into one long noisefest. A bass-heavy
intro to Deadly Art Of Illusion, a NWOAHM guitar break in Glory
Grabbers Unite, and a feedback-strewn ending to It’s Happening
Again all keep you off balance and trying to guess what will come
next.
It’s hard to pick any standout tracks, since the energy
that runs through every track will make you spasm, head bang and
air drum to everything, even if it is only for 20 seconds before
the song moves on.
Subba
Cultcha
Formerly known as P>S>P,
the band soon to be known as “the most brutal thing to have
come from Barnsley since Mrs. Brobdidnagian’s black pudding”
are known as Errander these days - apparently Mr Sony was getting
a bit cross, or might have been, or something. Whatever, it doesn’t
seem to have blunted their attack much, which is still right at
the extreme end of the brutality spectrum.
At least, unlike many of the other bands doing a similar noise,
they are sussed enough to temper the aural assault with some more
gentle passages. Even when they are going for it, they tend to
try to keep a variation about their assault, so it really isn’t
all about playing as fast as possible until everyone dies.
The result is a vicious yet varied album which will provide as
much noise as anyone would ever need yet simultaneously keep the
cranium occupied. Not what I expected from a bunch of Yorkshiremen,
but well done them, nonetheless.
Organ
Magazine
The Need To Know (In At The Deep
End) - The Yorkshire band enjoyed a lot of very early rather positive
exposure from us here at Organ back when they first started making
their noisy moves (somewhere at the end of the last century),
tracks on free Organ Radio compilations CDs, rather positive demo
reviews and such. They we’re called P>S>P back then
and their extreme metal was delivered with a potentially thrilling
raw naive blistering punky attitude, they were threatening to
evolve in to a band who might just matter. Fast forward a few
years and Errander’s debut album ‘proper’ has
just dropped through our letterbox. The name is changed (something
to do with Sony Playstations and lawyers) and the packaging is
plush and I’m not sure what they’ve been up to or
sounding like in the gap since we last encountered them. What
I do know is the whole metal scene had evolved quite a bit since
we last encountered the hopeful early moves of P>S>P and
although there’s nothing massively life challenging here
(and the packaging/artwork is awfully cliched and really didn’t
get our hopes) there are some really fine extreme blistering relentless
screaming twisted gut churning moments to be found, some nice
abrasive discordance and thirty three minutes of almost never
relenting first rate extreme metal. There are moments of genuine
light and shade (and no, not that annoying screamo quiet/loud
stuff). Errander, we’re genuinely pleased to say, have dropped
a rather good extreme metal album, and if you’re comfortable
with being constantly creamed at while guitars relentlessly riff
at you and rhythm sections pound your head then there is some
rewarding colour here.
Nine
Hertz
Errander (formerly known as P>S>P
for those not paying attention) are refered to by the lovingly
produced In At The Deep End biog accompanying the album as 'combining
all out thrash riffery, head banging metal and hardcore stomp
with a splash of melody for good measure' and to be fair, that's
about as succint and accurate a description of what's on offer
here as you could hope for.Brilliant. Job done, I'm off down the
pub.
*ahem* Anyway, I jumped at the chance to get my hands on this
when it was added to the list of available to review cds 9hz had
received as I knew (if admittedly only from their MySpace presence)
that Errander are a bit on the mighty side and had actually considered
buying the cd myself when IATDE started advertising it but had
stayed my credit card-wielding hand for financial reasons more
than anything else. Am I glad I didn't pay for it? Yeah, maybe.
Am I glad I jumped on it to review? Yes. Reason being, I'm not
exactly much of a thrash fan and hence this cd won't necessarily
get too much of a pride of place within my cd collection but none
the less this is still a good (indeed, occasionally excellent)
record with enough of the afore-mentioned 'hardcore stomp' to
keep me more than happy that these South Yorkshire boys should
be very proud of.
The 33 minute onslaught (which is undeniably the right word for
it) gets under way with absolutely ZERO messing about with all
instruments roaring and Ryan (also of GU Medicine 'fame') screaming
his not inconsiderable lungs out without even a seconds preamble
and proceeds to continue at that particularly violent tempo for
almost the entire duration. Make no mistake, this is blistering
stuff with even the more melodic moments barely dropping the break
neck pace. I think it's safe to say there isn't a duff track here
although as a result of the sheer ferocity it's rather difficult
to pick out highlights as the album tends to explode past you
in such a jagged, Metallica-having-a-bar-brawl-with-Converge-on-cheap-speed
blast that you can often accidentally miss half of it in a flurry
of air-guitaring before you know what's going on.
Personally, I'd have to say that some of it can get a bit too
choppy for my tastes and some of the more melodious passages can
seem a bit crowbarred in for good measure but on the whole it's
a nice mix of styles. Add to that the very crisp production and
beautiful presentation (I defy anyone to ever accuse IATDE releases
to be found wanting on these fronts, of course) and there's very
little room left for grumbling.
So, do you (The) Need To Know about this album? Yeah, I'd say
so. Anyway, I'm off to kick some poor bastard shitless to vent
all this surplus aggression I'm feeling all of a sudden. Dunno
where that's come from... *cd finishes* Oh no wait, I'm alright
now.
Rocksound
There's somthing very British about
these south yorkshire screamers. Errander crush hardcore, metal
and punk into a tiny ball before kicking it into the listener's
face, but do so with a sort of steely northern charm. Stream-of-consciousness
lyrics about the state of society and personal intention chafe
against jarring layers of sound, which are somtimes as unbearable
as a caterwauling toddler clanging dustbin lids together. at odds
with this cacophony, trip hop interludes 'Now We're Gone' and
'Through The Door' come over as smooth and sweet as treacle. 'The
Need To Know' is certainly hard going stuff, but with noisier,
thrashier neighbours Bring Me The Horizon racking up the fans,
there's no reason why errander shouldn't do the same.
A
Short Fanzine About Rocking
After a few years touring the shitholes
of the UK as P>S>P, this Yorkshire four-piece decided to
change their name to the infinitely better (and less likely to
result in legal action from Sony!) moniker Errander. Having seen
them a couple of times in their former guise I had a fair idea
of what to expect but I didn’t think it’d be as stomach-churningly
intense as this! ‘The Need To Know’ is a frighteningly
full-on album – 33 minutes of chaotic yet coherent noise-punk-metal-hardcore
fury that will send the haircut-obsessed myspace-whoring masses
running to their parents in terror. Yep, it’s that good…right
from the first second of first song ‘Glory Grabbers Unite’,
Errander go for the jugular, creating an intense wall of noise
driven by sheet metal riffing and harsh vocals and oodles of raw,
vicious energy. While the chaotic nature of their sound should,
by rights, ensure the whole thing collapses in on itself someway
midway through, say, track three, it doesn’t – mainly
due to the band’s technical prowess and the riffs that nail
each song together and give them structure. These are particularly
in evidence on songs like ‘Destroyed Still True’ and
‘Deadly Art Of Illusion’ but the excellence of this
album is that not once does it feel messy – Full-on? Yes.
Insane? Yes. But never messy. The placing of two calm instrumentals
thankfully stops your head exploding from the sheer intensity
of it all but by and large this is paint-strippingly crushing
stuff – in fact, imagine Converge minus the atmospheric
bits and you’ll be somewhere close. A fantastic slice of
noise.
Unpeeled
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