Album Review: High Tension - Bully

Since the beguiling banshee of Young & Restless’ Karina Utomo and her axeman-in-arms Ash Pegram joined forces with The Nation Blue’s Matt Weston and Heirs skinsman Damian Coward, the metal maelstrom of High Tension has ratcheted up an endless torrent of aural anxiety and feverish fanaticism.

Now onto their second album, Bully, they finally have a concrete document of their visceral viscosity.

High Tension kick things off with Bully — a militaristic march, a diseased pulse in the neck, a lurking menace, Utomo’s vocals a low slur as she snarls I can’t get enough of it…I’ll show you how it’s done (bitch), before her depraved wail and guttural howl strips the lining from your brain. The song titles — Guillotine, Killed By Life, Hell Repeat, Mass Grave — continue the aural assault. Guillotine is a tightly-coiled serrated spring, tensioned for the next strike. Weston’s desperately frenetic bass opens up Sports, and the intensity and speed is raised tenfold — nothing sportsmanlike here. Killed By Life is a two-minute Motorhead blitzkrieg, while Iceman gets even more concentrated, a one-minute meltdown, Slayer self-medicated on meth and mayhem. Lapindo takes a Kyuss riff into the abyss, offering eternal damnation where the roars inexplicably alleviate the stress and strain.

Adalita joins the fray on Take Control, a five-minute slow-burner that embraces and ridicules success in equal measure. Static Screens shows off a grandiose theatricality and closer, What’s Left?, a somewhat sedate rocker, but after the relentless barrage that’s come before, even a Bully needs to wind down.