Antagonised by the provocative words “if you don’t fight like hell, you’re not going to have a country any more” his gathered masses descended upon Congress. What unfolded was like a scene from a Hollywood film, as an angry mob turned the nation’s capital into a riot zone. The delusional rage and fury resulted in the death of five people, along with injuring 138 police officers. This event was the culmination of four years of division and hate spewed by Trump – unfortunately it was an incident waiting to happen, almost one year into a pandemic. It goes without saying, shit’s been crazy for some time. Unrelated but strangely pertinent, on the very same day Deaf Club were recording their debut LP ‘ Productive Disruption’, which rather pointedly is being released today, one year on from that event.

The album itself wasn’t influenced by ‘The Insurrection’, yet its inception at the same time feels weirdly prophetical, like the hardcore punk ensemble were holding up a distorted (black?) mirror to the last few years and projecting back their own rage, disbelief and bewilderment at a world gone loop-the-loop. To quote the band, the record “serves as a productive disruption to the bootlicking, copsucking, flag-fucking frenzy we’ve found ourselves surrounded by.” What Deaf Club have produced (the unit are comprised of Justin Pearson (The Locust/Dead Cross), Brian Amalfitano (ACxDC), Scott Osment (Weak Flesh), Jason Klein (Run With TheHunted) and Tommy Meehan (The Manx/Chum Out!) is 23 minutes of unrelenting, uncompromising noise and fury; it’s a mangled melee that serves as a cathartic release through the power of gnarled punk, thrash and grind (and any other random outposts from punk’s acidic spectrum). Across the LP’s 14 tracks Deaf Club convulse, explode and pummel you like it’s the last piece of music they’ll ever produce. There’s the occasional groove and a fleeting nod towards hardcore’s anthemic, gang vocal chants but these moments are hidden like Easter Eggs amongst the mechanical violence the five piece unleash.

Listening to the album is one thing; a breathless, acerbic yet beautiful event, however Deaf Club have gone one step further when it comes to ushering you into their inner sanctum. To accompany ‘Productive Disruption’, the unit have captured the LP as a live performance, which is a true assault to the senses. Not content with kicking the living shit out of your ears, they want to scorch your eyes and frazzle your brain – in the best way possible. The band are set-up in what looks like a cramped practice space, surrounded by amps with Deaf Club spray painted on the back wall, and then the fuse is lit; they explode into the LP’s opening track ‘For a Good Time Call Someone Else’ and by the time ‘Planet Bombing’ is closing things off, you’ve witnessed a whirlwind of limbs courtesy of frontman Pearson and a migraine inducing barrage of strobed and distorted visuals that are affectionately labelled as ‘visual fuckery’ via the performance’s end credits. It’s the purest form of unbridled energy and expression.

I’ll leave it to the band to sign off with what ‘Productive Disruption’ really means, as their press release sums it up perfectly “a death threat to some, a love letter to others.”

Order Productive Disruption by Deaf Club HERE