Doom Beach and Chop come together to form a haggard and harsh look into all the beautiful ugliness that is flowing out of New England right now.
Release date: February 1, 2024 | Redscroll Records | Doom Beach: Instagram | Facebook | Bandcamp | Chop Chop Chop Chop Chop Chop Chop: Instagram | Facebook | Bandcamp
Towards the end of the 2022, I was laying in bed doomscrolling TikTok with no end in sight. As I slowly approached the end of my rope and the inevitable erosion of my mental stability, a shining light came across my FYP. Chop Chop Chop Chop Chop Chop Chop (whom I will simply refer to as Chop for the rest of this article for the sake of brevity) was reviewing his favorite records of the year. I didn’t even know that he made music at the time, but his scraggly beard poking out from under his bright red ski mask caught my eye and made me think this may be the exact type of person whose opinions I may want to hear out. He heaped praise and love upon Copperhead by Doom Beach. The description of this record in particular caught my eye the most, so I picked up my phone and gave it a spin. Little did I know this would spark an obsession that would burn in my belly up until the very moment I sit here typing these words. I would soon delve into Chop’s music as well, and find myself scouring show flyers and Instagram tags trying to find what other grodyness was seeping within this scene. And that brings us to this year, where the two artists that started it all for me dropped a new split.
To put it straight, this was my most anticipated release of 2024 as soon as I heard about it. The whole of Doom Beach and Chop’s respective discographies have come to be some of my favorites in the underground right now, so them coming together was my own personal crossover comic book story. This split is everything you would expect it to be. Both sides pummel you into the dirt with their own brands of malevolence. Everything comes off as immense and uncontrollable. At only 23 minutes, the project leaves you no room to breathe and no pathway for escape, but for fans of noise rock and grind, you will have no reason to look for relief. As well as they complement one another, both sides manage to carve out their own sonic texture and identity, and leave the listener on edge.
Doom Beach is a simple two piece. Guitar, drums, and screams make up the sonic palette you will be subjected to on their records. The two members push these elements to the final frontier of what one would logically think they could do, and in that produce my preferred side of this monster of a project. Everything is slathered in cavernous reverb, making it all feel full and immense, almost as if the sound is about to break out of your headphones and start taking over the room around you. Every time I listen to Doom Beach, I feel as if the air around me is slowly being pulled into a thin string, one that my lungs struggle to pull inward.
My favorite track they offer up on this project is “Gown”. Snapping hi-hats lead into the mix before chunky guitars come to drown them out, but rhythm and bounce somehow always find a way to cut through with Doom Beach, and this track is no exception. Percussion and searing guitars trade off in the song, giving this track an apocalyptic feeling. Every Doom Beach song sounds like the world is ending to a certain extent, but this track manages to feel as if the apocalyptic comet of our demise is looming just above our heads. These elements continue to build up until the final moments when they explode in fiery disintegration. This was the perfect way for this side of the split to end, seemingly wiping the slate clean and leaving room for Chop to make himself known among the wreckage.
Chop brings something less immense in terms of scale and texture, but far more relentless in terms of pure speed and aggression to the table. Guitars and drums race by absolutely caked in buzzing noise effects. These tracks whizz by in little more than a minute typically, opting to get in, knock you on your ass, and get out before you have time to defend yourself from the next onslaught. “Exploitation Is Not a Flex”, “Excuses Excuses”, and “(32 Songs About Self Loathing)” all meld together into one brutal fist after another. Only on the final two tracks does he give you more than two minutes at once – “(52 Songs About Dead Cops)” being my favorite, with the familiar onslaught leading up to Chop simply screaming ‘die’ twenty or so times while percussion mauls the mix behind his voice.
Listening to Chop’s music is like getting your ass kicked by every enemy and friend you’ve ever had all at once. As soon as a nasty guitar pops in to make you gnarl your face and bob your head, it seemingly gets forced out of the mix by more rolling programmed drums or by Chop’s vocals. All the elements at play are seemingly fighting for space amongst themselves, turning the music into a battlefield of cacophony. If the Doom Beach side was a vice grip squeezing the air and blood out of your body, the Chop side is a series of rotary saws buzzing through your flesh quicker than your nerve endings and can even register pain.
The fellas did not disappoint on either side of this split. It proved to be everything I could have hoped for. Doom Beach and Chop are both carving an unforgettable name for themselves in Connecticut right now, but they are only a piece of that beautiful noisy scene. There is no shortage of madness being cranked out of the northeastern United States right now; if you are looking to dive in and get acquainted, I cannot think of a better introduction than this project.
