“A visceral reaction to the chaotic world we live in”.

Thus speaks the PR blurb, and at times on this EP/LP (six tracks, with two bonus remixes lifting the run time above that of Reign In Blood, the unofficial Sentinel Daily benchmark for albumhood), there is a little viscera on show, as well as lots of huffing, uffing, and chucklesome posturing.

Maybe I’m being a little unkind there; Mercenary Notes… is actually a pretty entertaining listen, but it isn’t as menacing as it would like to be; Only when the band hits ramming speed and starts chugging like Prong does the whole thing start to get really frisky, but if you’ve ever had a sneaking regard for the life and works of Chris Connelly or Al Jourgensen, or even Haysi Fantayzee, for that matter, then you’ll find some tasty morsels here for your delectation.

Talking of Haysi Fantayzee, guest vocalist Pete Berwick sounds just like that band’s Jeremy Healy on Joker’s Wild (And Kings Are Dead); that’s not as outlandish a claim as you might think, and Berwick also lends his talents to the best thing here Influence, which has a NIN-on-happy-pills swagger that’s absent elsewhere.

Celebrity spotters will be pleased to hear that Godflesh alumnus Justin Broadrick adds a suitably monumental remix of Warning Signs to the mix, in the process exhibiting perfectly what happens when mercurial genius is added to workmanlike solidity. Broadrick’s mayhemic glee oozes from every pore of the track’s reanimated carcass, leaving it jerking and pulsing in frankly unsettling fashion. If you loved a bit of gabba back in the day this’ll get your receptors twitching and then some…

The record finishes with Cyanotic‘s take on Radiation Blues (and Connelly fans will twitch a little at the association there), and, for all my gentle ribbing, the names I’ve dropped here mean that fans of ‘old school industrial’ will ind a bit of a spring in their step at the prospect of all this. And why not?

Mercenary Notes Pt.2 releases on March 14th.