The Locust

The Locust makes shitty albums. The anarchic San Diego quartet just can't sustain interest for any prolonged period of time; its most compelling stuff has always been found crammed onto one side of split seven-inch singles. 2003's disastrously dull Plague Soundscapes was the perfect example of the group's full-length entropy...

By Jason Heller

March 31, 2005

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The Locust makes shitty albums. The anarchic San Diego quartet just can't sustain interest for any prolonged period of time; its most compelling stuff has always been found crammed onto one side of split seven-inch singles. 2003's disastrously dull Plague Soundscapes was the perfect example of the group's full-length entropy -- too much time spent sewing up bug costumes, not enough cooking up ideas. But now we have Safety Second, Body Last, a seven-movement opera that clocks in at just over ten minutes -- and the best single slab of the Locust since its earth-scorching eponymous debut. A veritable micro-prog epic, the disc can't afford to fuck around for a second; its tantrum of manicured noise, guttural riffs and Tron-era synths fractures and reconfigures its own mad methodology, deconstructing the process of deconstruction itself until the whole thing is sucked to the brink of implosion. Brevity isn't just the soul of wit, it's the lifeblood of experimental rock. And with Safety Second, the Locust proves that its morbidly comical avant-core is just as vital as ever.

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