Trash Talk - 119

On the face of it, the alliance between Sacramento hardcore band Trash Talk and notorious hip hop collective Odd Future may seem unlikely. On closer inspection, however, it makes perfect sense.

The two acts have forged a strong bond over the past year primarily by playing a number of extraordinarily incendiary gigs together - and now Trash Talk have cemented that bond by signing to Odd Future Records for the release of their second album, ‘119’. The two groups share a propensity for visceral, unrelenting output and a youthfully fearless attitude; these attributes are exceedingly strong on ‘119’.

Brevity is very much the key for Trash Talk. The fourteen tracks here clock in at a meagre twenty-three minutes. Any longer, though, and you’d probably feel you were about to spontaneously combust; it’s breathlessly powerful stuff. Hardcore thrash is very much the template: there’s a bludgeoning thrill to be had from the rush of ‘Eat The Cycle’ and ‘F.E.B.N’, and in the rare moments that the pace drops, it retracts to the doom-laden, insanely heavy sludge of late Black Flag, as on ‘Swinging Pieces’.

There’s a near-constant feeling throughout that ‘119’ is about to collapse in on itself; it’s an album that frequently hurdles close to and, indeed, over the edge. As such, it’s sometimes a difficult listen, there’s a lack of lucidity and guile that at times leaves the less striking tracks to come across rather samey.

The highlight by far is the appearances of two of their new label mates and comrades: OFWGKTA’s Hodgy Beats and Tyler, The Creator arrive to give ‘Blossom & Burn’ a brutally sinister quality with some deeply unhinged rhymes. It’s a collaboration of impossible power and resonance.

‘119’ should be just the beginning of a period of dominance for Trash Talk, the patronage and clout of Odd Future no doubt helping them to take their full-on hardcore attack to a serenely unaware audience - and no doubt blow them to smithereens.