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Debut EP from Austin, TX punks
Our take: Maggots Consume is the debut EP by this hardcore band from Austin, Texas. I’m not sure who is in Flower City, but based on Maggots Consume, it’s hard to imagine their sound isn’t informed by titans of Austin hardcore like Impalers and Criaturas. Flower City has a similar approach, building their songs around interesting and inventive riffing and playing with a head-down intensity that never lets up. As with those bands, it sounds like a relentless barrage on first listen, but a closer inspection reveals a subtlety in the arrangements that keeps the songs interesting all the way through… a noisy lead guitar passage here, an ever-so-subtle let-up in tempo there (only to come crashing back to full intensity, of course). The vocals are drenched in echo and buried way down in the mix, keeping the focus on those riffs, which just keep coming at you for the duration of these six tracks. While the lack of obvious dynamics and theatrics might make Flower City inscrutable to a dabbler in hardcore, those of us with an appreciation for this workmanlike approach to the genre will appreciate their power and precision.
Our take: Maggots Consume is the debut EP by this hardcore band from Austin, Texas. I’m not sure who is in Flower City, but based on Maggots Consume, it’s hard to imagine their sound isn’t informed by titans of Austin hardcore like Impalers and Criaturas. Flower City has a similar approach, building their songs around interesting and inventive riffing and playing with a head-down intensity that never lets up. As with those bands, it sounds like a relentless barrage on first listen, but a closer inspection reveals a subtlety in the arrangements that keeps the songs interesting all the way through… a noisy lead guitar passage here, an ever-so-subtle let-up in tempo there (only to come crashing back to full intensity, of course). The vocals are drenched in echo and buried way down in the mix, keeping the focus on those riffs, which just keep coming at you for the duration of these six tracks. While the lack of obvious dynamics and theatrics might make Flower City inscrutable to a dabbler in hardcore, those of us with an appreciation for this workmanlike approach to the genre will appreciate their power and precision.