Whores’ first full-length comes charging right out of the gate and doesn’t let up. Call it angular hard metal largely at punk speed. After a series of short, choppy releases (two EPs and a split single with Rabbits), the Atlanta trio tries its chops over a full album, and there’s enough solid material here that the record never lags. That would seem like a strange risk for music this pounding and this weighty, but a lot of relentless metal bands can come to sound samey after half an album’s worth of thudding bass and midrange distortion. Whores avoid that pitfall through clever sequencing of speed-racer tracks next to more restrainedly paced numbers (the opening blast of “Playing Poor,” leadoff single “Baby Teeth” and “Participation Trophy” illustrates this move well) and by allowing Christian Lembach’s vocals to rise and recede in the hammering instrumental mix as needed. There’s a lot of sonic variety on Gold, in fact; tonal and EQ variation from song to song contribute to the music’s diverse feel, a quality that impresses the more you spin it.
—Eric Waggoner
