femtanyl make music for ears of steel. Overly-fried beats pulsing at max volume, melodic digital loops humming faintly under wacky sound effects, a frantic voice shouting into a crackling microphone that struggles to keep tempo — one would have to be a little desensitized to music to thoroughly enjoy the hardcore world of the electronic duo’s debut album, MAN BITES DOG.

The femtanyl sound is immediately recognizable: hyper, manic, raging, and drowning in fuzz. 2023’s CHASER EP, producer Noelle Mansbridge’s first studio project, introduced listeners to a musical style influenced by the 90s fusion of hardcore techno with breakbeat, yet pushed further into the extremes of stimulation. Even quicker tempos, clipping beats achieved by maxing out the bass levels, scrambling and overly-autotuned hardcore vocals, and video game sonic aesthetics get folded into the mix, and thus, a nightmarish rave track like “GIRL HELL 1999” is born. 2024’s REACTOR follows up with even more embellishments, solidifying Mansbridge’s artistic identity as one with a penchant for chaos. “M3 N MIN3”, for instance, shaves a minute off their sampled 1992 track “The Bouncer” by Kicks Like A Mule, piling on lasers, rapid percussion, barely audible babbling vocals, and a hype and breakneck verse by experimental rapper Danny Brown.

An EP, collaborations with Brown and fellow cult figures in breakcore, and a full album later, Mansbirdge, now joined by multi-instrumentalist and co-producer Juno Callender, is still bursting with violent euphoria.

MAN BITES DOG is 32 minutes of non-stop energy. It’s hard to find a single place to begin unpacking the record; the giant mass of sound runs swiftly from one song to the next, barely halting to let the listener catch up. “BODY THE PISTOL” has about twenty seconds of warm-up, letting a bare-boned snap, a couple spaced-out beeps, and a buzzer-like electric guitar riff loop before the rest of the embellishments take over and the sonic equivalent of an acid high kicks in. Mansbridge and Callender then punch their way into “VIDEO NASTY”, a three-minute track that forces its way through the speaker with violent bass thumps, screams, and an industrial- meets-acid rave loop. It’s a solid club track with pop punk flair, showing the electronic duo could host a fun (albeit intense) party. The drug-induced rave doesn’t stop until the last few seconds of “IS THIS IT”, a loop of synthetic breaths that aerate the dancer’s overworked lungs.

MAN BITES DOG could be comparable to Ninajirachi’s 2025 record I Love My Computer on the sole basis that both took careful measures to ensure that each song seamlessly bleeds into the next, modelling the studio recording after a live set. However, the latter championed pacing: Nina Wilson’s album is classic, high-energy EDM, yet she still allowed for slower songs (“Sing Good”), elongated transitions between tracks with different tones (“CSIRAC”), and extended periods of pure, harsh beats (“All At Once”) to keep up her stamina for the long rave. femtanyl, on the other hand, burn themselves out quickly. “HELLTARGET” is tiresome, devolving into gibberish noise that turned the acid high into an overdose. Sure, there is a brief pause half-way through—it sounds like the duo took their original loop, slowed it down 200%, and kept all the aggregated pitch distortion—but it lasts only ten seconds in a four-minute wall of noise that’s not even the half-way point of the album. What follows is even more speed, even more shouting, even more fry, even more percussion, even more lasers: while this technical feat works incredibly well for the quick hit of an EP, the lack of breaks makes the crescendos into freak outs grating rather than dramatic.

The only reprieves we get are in songs that strip away most of femtanyl’s signature sound to focus on more traditional rave loops. “HEAD UP” dips into classic breakcore, sacrificing some of the noise clipping and bass fry to instead make a crisp, clean instrumental progression. “MY HEAD HURTS”, which comes immediately after, glitters with a surprisingly joyful melody on can actually distinguish from the fry. It’s slower than the others — though, let’s be realistic, it’s still a fast-paced EDM track — and it runs as a whimsical, 90s-influenced synth loop. “MAN BITES DOG” has some interesting details as well, sneaking in a fun electric guitar riff and old Porter Robinson electropop song under a digital whirlwind of snaps and lasers.

femtanyl are enjoyable in small doses. Either in a standalone song or in a fifteen-minute EP, the experimental hardcore duo can easily wow anyone with their indulgent sound and talent for keeping track of every layer in their densely-packed songs. Even on this album, the songs are undeniably well-made and fun (at the right time and place, of course). However, if the duo wants to pull an all-nighter in some techno goth club in Toronto, they’re going to need to figure out how to pace themselves. MAN BITES DOG beats all the wind out of you; if it’s this exhausting recorded, then it’s probably too much of a nightmare to enjoy live.

Order MAN BITES DOG by Femtanyl HERE