Destruction Unit: Negative Feedback Resistor Review

By Andrew Nogay
Blog Content Contributor

Artist: Destruction Unit
Album: Negative Feedback Resistor
Label: Sacred Bones
Release Date: September 18, 2015
Website: https://destructionunit.bandcamp.com/

Negative Feedback Resistor is Destruction Unit’s follow up to their acclaimed 2013 album Deep Trip, and it sizzles and rips just as hard as any music they’ve released. Their brand of psych-punk is some of the most aggressive, noisy and mind-melting music being made today. The power of Destruction Unit comes from the layers of noise they add, and the ability to peel those layers back. Things can appear stripped down one minute, then sound like a runaway train the next.

Negative Feedback Resistor starts out with about 2 minutes of near silence, before exploding into noise-charged punk that tells the listener that Destruction Unit does not stall. That first song leads into “Proper Decay,” one of the standout songs from the album. In violent bursts, an atmosphere of despair seeps in. This leads into “Salvation,” then the album hits the nine-minute bruiser “Chemical Reaction/Chemical Delight,” which basically divides the album in half. The last four songs, “Animal Instinct,” “Judgement Day”, “If Death Never Slept” and “The Upper Hand” are all fantastic noise fests. Although the way Destruction Unit plays, the songs lead right into each other, there is little distinguishing the songs. Their albums almost play better as a single, extremely long piece.

Death is a pervasive theme with Destruction, but it is almost graceful in a way. The dichotomy between pain and beauty shows through not just in their lyrics, but through their music as well. Not many bands say more with their instruments than Destruction Unit. The three guitar lineup allows for a lot of flexibility, and a lot of possible noise. A lot of times, the ghostly, barely understandable vocals act more like an instrument than a standard singer.

I’ve seen Destruction Unit live three times, and if you like their studio stuff, I can attest that they’re even better live. They have such a unique energy as a band, it is hard to capture on record, but it comes through blazingly live. The last time I saw them, back during the summer, they played a set of songs I had never heard before. I figured the songs were from their then-upcoming album, and I thought that if what Destruction Unit played was really their new album, then it would be one of the best albums of the year. As it turned out, Negative Feedback Resistor is.