Album Review: Dick Nasty - Heaven’s Filling Up

Brisbane's own mavens of malcontent Dick Nasty make a blistering return with Heaven's Filling Up, and it doesn't take long to realise that such earbashings have been long overdue. Opening with the excellent Birth, School, Amity Affliction, Death (their long and humorous song titles still stand intact), which spits vitriol towards the hardcore-loving youth who frequent Mary Street, the quartet sound faster and more proficient, alluding to a break well spent honing their skills amidst the myriad tallies and garrulous rants.

And there are a lot of them here, spat out in fury and precision across seventeen breakneck songs. There are scattergun blasts at political apathy (A New Hope In The Age Of Couches (Tilt Ya Head Fuckwit)), believers and cultists (Last Koresh) and commuters with their loud iPods (The Cool Ruler Rides Again). Dick Nasty are grumpier and more caustic than ever, and no one is safe.

But it's the music that is most relentless. The twin guitar attack of Geordie Stafford and John Mercer has leapt into a growling pit of metal riffs, each one faster and more insistent than the last. Cuffy's drumming at times threatens to pierce the skins and blast the cymbals to hell, such is the ferocity and speed of the delivery. Lucas Moore's bass once more is the underlying force that keeps the whole thing from devolving into mere noise. It's a ruthless display of wanton aggression and gnashing of teeth, with a few winks and nudges along the way. You don't have to appreciate hardcore punk to know that Dick Nasty have killed it on this one.