REMOVAL
There Can Be Only None
(removeallmusic)

Seemingly a concept album of sorts, this local instro-outfit’s third full-length proposes that lyric-less music such as theirs can say as much, if not more, than your average song with usually meaningless, empty lyrics. Removal’s potent, if not sometimes slightly repetitive, concoction of the bass-heavy, chunky, funky hardcore of Bad Brains, The Minutemen, and, of course, Removal’s own mentors, NoMeansNo, mixed with deliberate, Clapton-era Cream licks and quizzical samples of such non sequiturs as string sections, modem tones, traffic sounds and varied spoken word clips strewn throughout. The Removal cocktail is spiked with synths, scratches and loops to give it that foreboding nuance of a future past that might be when it all goes to hell in a handbasket. Less heavy and more adventurous than past efforts.

Spike