The band describes itself as mid-90s chaoscore verging on mathy metallic sludge. And a few other things as well, though my German isn't great and the translation is, um, kinda incoherent. But I think that snippet does well enough to give a good idea of what is going on here.

Park + Riot Wise Words from Well-Fed Mouths (This Charming Man)

There is a real Slint playing Refused arrangements of Mudhoney songs thing going on. I've never come across "chaoscore" before, though I think it lies on the metallic side of no wave. Anyway, that's sort of Park + Riot's baseline. Throttling drums, thrashy guitars and vocals that are rarely sung at anything less than a scream.

If Snapcase and Earth Crisis represented the technical side of the punk/metal convergence, Park + Riot represents the opposite, the random and chaotic side of where those sounds meet. Except that within all of the mess and excess lies a clockwork precision. The dichotomy is striking and unmistakable, particularly when some black metal and doom elements descend into the morass.

Utterly unlike anything I've heard in years (if ever). Park + Riot are out on the edge. Many edges, really. Brilliant, paint-stripping and just plain weird. I'm pretty sure that this is not the future of music in any way, but without albums like this, progress will not happen. My brain is seared, and all is well.

Jon Worley