SCALP – not worthy of human compassion – VINYL LP (onyx)

With Not Worthy of Human Compassion, the band’s third LP and latest for the venerable Closed Casket Activities, SCALP returns to the catchy, vein-bulging nihilism that marked their debut Domestic Extremity, adding in the technicality found on the follow-up Black Tar. The result is a flag-flown high and an amalgamation of the maximal elements of heavy music– a full-on siege by way of death metal, grind, d-beat and powerviolence seen through the blood-soaked and grimy lens of negative hardcore. Musicality aside, a book called The Lucifer Effect cast a long shadow on the record. Written by Philip Zimbardo, the tome details the infamous Stanford Prison Experiment, examining the human factors that could make anyone susceptible to paths into shadow. Nothing is more terrifying than an evil genius, and Not Worthy of Human Compassion is as maniacal as it is learned, calculating and precise as a cut from a scalpel.