Oh boy, this 2024 cartridge is a fuckin' crusher. It's the debut EP from the Providence, Rhode Island band made up of some of my favorite musicians from that 'burgh: you've got Vomit Arsonist's Andrew Grant, Dave Public from the decimating noise-grind outfit Suffering Bastard, and Josh Yelle who (I think) currently plays in the excellent psych-sludge band Queen Elephantine amongst a host of other projects. This cassette follows a rather brutalizing "rehearsal tape" via the band's Bandcamp, which showcased Dull Care's particular take on ultra-blown-out sludge-punk. That stuff was pretty obliterating, crawling out of the same hypodermic-filled sewage pool as C-Blast faves Kilslug, Drunkis With Guns, Upsidedown Cross, Brainbombs, Duh, Rusted Shut and other purveyors of hammering, raw, fucked-up aggression. But with a level of metallic distortion and colossal stomp that pushes it even further into the realm of the more abject species of sludgecore and dirge-metal. Just two tracks, but man those motherfucking tunes were maniacal, mega dirge heaviness based on droning two-chord riffs pile-driving your carcass into the dirt until they just collapse into even slower, crawling suffering. Vocals spraying across this mess in a white-hot, fried-out mist of pissed-off screaming and strangled wailing, with the whole thing bathed in a buzzing, hissing cloud of in-the-red distortion and feedback that makes me feel like I could get lockjaw from scraping myself on the tape case. Glorious.

Their EP features new versions of the practice tracks, and they sound even more irate and drug-damaged than before. "Apex Caldor" and “Shoplifter Of The Month" come bustin' through your door like a battering ram, septic shrieks and brain-damaged ur-riff hammering your skull with single-minded barbarity. Same for the other five tracks. Echoing screams float like sulfuric fog above these droning caveman dirges and mesmeric, metronomic drums, absurdly heavy and lumbering. Those riffs, tuned down to sewage, will change up every once in a while, but maintain the bulldozing imperative. Amplifier rumble and hiss and weird background sounds and dialogue creep between the songs. Terminally bad attitude and anti-social behavior is the juice this beast is running on, tar-dunked power-dirges like "Company Dime" , "Under New Management" and "Lose Traveller", but also electrocute you with the occasional blastbeat that'll suddenly rattle your gourd violently for a moment. After listening to this slab of sub-sludge skuzz a couple times, it starts to kinda feel like it could fit in somewhere between early Noothgrush and the heaviest, most ass-crushing moments of Nirvana's Bleach (or the most regressive stomp-a-thons from the Melvins, take your pick), perhaps. Crusty as hell, every second soaked in total abjection and a sense of general world-loathing aggravation. Peppered with bursts of pure strangulated noise, possessed by a particularly sicko bass tone, and crackling speaker-spread that matches the abrasion of any solid power electronics outfit.

If you've had the pleasure of getting your guts rumbled by the mighty Suffering Bastard, you can definitely hear a similar noise-damaged vibe with this. But Dull Care also go for something more repetitious and rocking, with stuff like "Lose Traveller" where the rhythm section of Josh and Dave take an unexpected but wonderful turn into a hypno-groove that feels positively krautrickish, while Andy's guitar just vomits all over the joint. It's great. Then it dunks you skull-first back down the manhole with the nearly eight-minute finale "Toileting”, and your punishment reaches its apex with that last four minutes totally drenching you in the ugliest, stenchiest slow-motion noise of all.

Only a hundred of these things made.