Grungy Dystopia from Atlanta's Untied States.

Ever since Volcano's Beautiful Seizure erupted five years ago in a flurry of ramshackle hysteria and blithering, yet beautiful incoherency, the realms of disjointed noise-core and palpated sonic onslaughts bordering on the clinically insane have become all but rather sparse. And this is precisely where Atlanta, Georgia's Untied States come into their own in a frenzied bustle of writhing guitar harmonics and crazed squeals. Distilling down the raw vociferousness of doom mongers Liars, the virtually crazed virtuosity of Menomena, the crunching instrumentation of Sonic Youth and the purified rage of Fugazi Untied States are such a rounded package, they'd scarcely fit into a jiffy bag the size of the Empire State Building. If you like your iPod teetering precariously on a tightrope surrounded by dissolving piranhas wading through hydrochloric acid, Untied States' Instant Everything, Constant Nothing may just be your White Album. Or Black Album. Or Grey Album...

The musical equivalent to snorting anthrax whilst sailing over the Grand Canyon in a golf cart, Untied States whip up an almost encyclopaedic voyage through avant garde wastelands, before stumbling across oases of tumbling keys (Wrestling With Entropy in the Rehabbed Factory) and rattling acoustic strings (These Dead Birds) making for a listen as enthralling as ever, throughout which you're never quite certain of where the compass will land. Gorilla The Bull pairs off muffled ear-battering vox with melancholic histrionics dripping with a dingy urgency. Not Fences, Mere Masks is as unsettling as a Ready, Steady Cook-off between a masked Anthony Hopkins and Chris Cunningham. Grey Tangerines almost sounds like Lee Mavers' The La's for a few minutes, before shrieking feedback curtails all clarity. Bye Bye Bi-Polar maintains the schizophrenic shitstorm Untied States whip up momentarily throughout this hysteric hunchback record. Were it a distant relative, you'd keep it locked in the attic, sustained by fish bones and rotten aubergines. Delusions Are Grander pertains to the punk tinge Craig Nicholls injected into initial Vines LPs and Holding Up Walls is as frantic as an ethered-up edition of Takeshi's Castle, all before Kowtow Great Equalizer rounds things up in quite ecstatically gruesome fashion. Buckle up, it's a bumpy ride.