Other Vultures are a noisy duo who play bass guitar and drums and occasionally sqwawk mad vocalese into a microphone, producing a lively melee of 'proudly-inept noisecore' on The Guilt Groupe EP (CFYR004). Nothing inept about it lads, and you shouldn't apologise to anyone when you can produce a floor-clearing blast like this - 32 minutes of loopy formless punk racket. Unlike a lot of other groups in this area, Butler and Sedgwick don't rely on too much distortion to project an image of nasty urban alienation, and while these recordings have oodles of oomph and overamped noise, you can hear every cymbal clash as sharply as being stung by a gigantic nettle. I'd imagine this team, very strong on performative skills, must be a real dynamo 8-ball when let loose in a public arena.

- Ed Pinsent, The Sound Projector

How does one measure something like effort? As in, the total amount of effort exerted by a group when they create their music. Perhaps in a unit like Lumins, and we would hook up the band members to electrodes and transfer that energy into a sole light bulb afixed to a table in the center of the room. The lightbulb would be the only source of light in the entire space, and the flesh of the onlookers would undulate and become pimpled like a basketball as the light slowly gained in intensity as the band began to pick up the pace; sweat began to leak from their brows. Many acts, in my opinion, would be able to put on quite a spectacle: creating rhythmic patterns of light. Sheer, intense brightness would be followed by a graceful dimming. Think of Explosions in The Sky. Or maybe a steady pulse, bobbing like a fishing lure a la Lee Noble.

Other Vultures, a duo of Frederick Butler on drums and Arthur Sedgwick handling bass and "vox", have crafted an EP which in their eyes probably tips the scales in terms of luminosity. In fact, the record is a little more scatterbrained. They call it "proudly-inept noisecore", and its premise is music created "Like performers of a high wire act without training, rehearsal, or a net". Cool, right? But throughout Guilt Groupe it seems as if Bulter and Sedgwick grow bored of their own vociferous display of heart. The music has little structure, and while its strong points are Sedgwick's use of looping bass noise and vocals coupled with the relentless pounding of drums, its when the two begin to crash off of their sugar high that their music becomes less intriguing and more of an exercise in patience. One second Other Vultures are their namesake; vicious. Other times they are tired children in a pediatric waiting room. The lightbulb flickers and dims quickly. And then the listener begins to wonder: "Why do I need to listen to two men beat their hearts out on instruments they refuse to play capably?" Other Vultures needs to sell their product better. Its probably unfair to judge them though, as this is their first and final release. (4/10)


- Ross Devlin, Foxy Digitalis