Well, bugger me! Holy Roar Records just continue to bring us some of the best underground heavy music around at the moment. I had previously reviewed The Barn from Idylls from the label and the quality is matched and even bettered here on Atrophy which is the début album from Windsor, Ontario’s Minors. The overriding feeling here is a sense of oppression and being pinned to my seat as the band dealt out wave upon wave of hardcore Sludge drenched in feedback, a stylistic choice which was very prevalent throughout.

One of the great facets about this is band and their songwriting is their ability to switch up the speed of the music without it feeling jarring or forced, again something drawn heavily from Converge but nonetheless Atrophy never ever feels like a paint-by-numbers album. There are nods to bands like Trap Them, Nails and Black Breath, not least with the vocal delivery, that feels at once harsh and unforgiving but there’s also has an almost punk feel to them. ‘Bone Pointer’ shows the more fast-paced side of the band and is a dream to listen to for any Converge fan, it’s so good it actually made me take notice of it more and more on repeat listens having previously just seen it as a bit of a straightforward Hardcore song.

This sounds like a lot of eggs being contained in one basket, doesn’t it? Well, let me also say that Minors manage to bring all of this together in under twenty minutes; a dizzying array of styles and sharp left-turns all brought together with such brevity is mind-blowing.

This a violent album, no matter whether it is through the sludgier, more atmospheric moments or the all-out aggressive numbers, while the whole thing feels unhinged from start to finish. What an absolute stonker of an album to end the year with!

8.5/10

KIERAN MITCHELL