Less then a second into the debut LP The Unlawful Trade of Greco-Roman Art, and Sacramento trio So Stressed has fully revealed their plan of attack: Perpetually crashing drums, buzzsawing guitar, and gut-wrenchingly pained howls, combining for one of the most potent post-hardcore assaults in recent memory. The album, courtesy of Perfect Pussy frontwoman Meredith Graves‘ Honor Press label (to which So Stressed are the first signees), is curdlingly sour at almost every turn — sample hook: “The worst part about you is that I’m with you / The worst part about you is that you’re here” — but never alienating, too invigorating, and too driven with battering-ram-like purpose to be so off-putting.
“We wrote all of the songs for the album over a two year period,” frontman Morgan Fox tells SPIN of his group’s inaugural full-length. “It took us forever because we would sometimes end up scrapping whole, finished songs if one of us ended up not really being into them… We wanted to write a pretty cohesive, ugly album and I think we eventually accomplished that.”
Stream the album below, and find the official release on Honor Press on May 26.
