"I just want to change the way people look at music, or maybe just destroy it in general," reads Justin Pearson's manifesto on The Locust's official website. An impressive goal, to be sure, but he's still got some personal obstacles to navigate before he comes close to it. Like prog-rockers and avant-gardists before him, Pearson laments the prevalence of 4/4 time, sending his brief, mathy anthems through speakers in headspinning time signatures that any ordinary fool (myself included) would likely find unclockable.
But interestingly, despite his aim to break free of the public's preconceptions of "what pop music ought to be," Pearson does conform nicely to all the stereotypes of underground rockers-- he even followed his indie rock contemporaries by commissioning a remix that turned his band's earlier, more "uncompromising" work into a drill-n-bass electro rave-up at the height of that particular craze. Chart The Locust against Alec Empire's superior efforts in that area and Pearson's manifesto begins to sound like the attention-seeking squeal of an underachieving sibling. Fortunately, Pearson's vocal immolation produces just the kind of hellish shrieks loud enough to drown out his irrelevant philosophies and questionable publicity ploys, and force you to understand what a juggernaut his band can be when at its best.
Over the eight years since its conception, The Locust's lineup has assimilated a murky hardcore gene pool in which Cattle Decapitation's David Astor and The Album Leaf's Jimmy LaValle have soaked. These black sheep have helped to cement The Locust's status as the causes celebres of the new hardcore movement. This newly reissued early EP features none of the band's later contributors, though, and as such, offers listeners the chance to ponder which approach-- the early years, or the more refined, newer incarnation-- is more satisfyingly obnoxious.
Of course, there's one big roadblock with this release: It's saddled with a remixing/remastering treatment that sands down some of the original's edges. The Locust tend to gain the most leverage when they echo Pearson's primal screams and mainline their ferocity through frayed studio wire and blown speaker cones. This edition might sound "cleaner" through your hi-fi, but it contradicts the rough-cut impulsion of the original recordings.
Still, that doesn't hinder the proceedings too much: Only a chronic migraine sufferer could imagine the kind of blinding misery conjured by this disc's opening 45 seconds, a little track called "Halfway to a Worthless Ideal Arrangement (An Interlude to a Discontinued Sarcastic Harmony... Yea Whatever)". And William Burroughs would balk at the caustic cut-ups that form the lyrics of "Hairspray Suppository": "Illness is a problem, not a convenience/ Sometimes things are started and never finished/ The stitch out of time never saves nine/ Diagnosed with a fucking illness/ Rome was never built in a day."
The song titles here are as base and scatological as their volatile contents; "Cattle Mutilation", "Head Hits Concrete" and "Keep Off the Tracks" read like the bleakest news report snapshots and hint at concerns deeper than Pearson's nonchalant bravado would suggest. But trying to pick through the cacophonous catharsis to explore these themes is as fruitless as attempting to transcribe the explosive guitar phrasing that rips up the mix, leaving it bleeding and sore like a fresh suture.
A further textual analysis becomes pointless as well, since The Locust is best experienced as an entirely carnal, sensory experience. Purists might prefer this earlier work to the more textured approach of late, but what are purists doing listening to The Locust anyway? Contradiction and alienation are integral parts of the band's charm. The bassist is wrong, they aren't going to change anything at all, and, in fact, they hardly even seem like they're trying. But then, as any virus coder can attest, the most effective means to corrupting a system is to Trojan Horse your way in and mutate it from the inside.
