Track Premiere: Skumstrike – “Caustic Poison”

The French word for drum kit—and to quote Steve Martin, “those French have a different word for everything!”—is la batterie, and, good lord, your noggin and all attendant parts will take a battering from French Canadian duo Skumstrike on their latest track, “Caustic Poison.” The lead track from the D-beat-driven black thrashers’ upcoming Deadly Intrusions full-length is a relentless assault, with manic riffery, wretched, distorted vocals and beaucoup de batterie. Skumstrike go full-tilt for barely two and a half minutes and still manage to wedge in a manic guitar solo and a weird psych-inspired freak out for a bridge.

Deadly Intrusions will be the full-length debut for the crusty Montreal, Quebec-based duo—L.A (Profane Order) on strings and ZS (Serpent Corpse, Xanadoo) on vocals/ceaseless battery—who have previously released a couple of EPs in 2018 and 2020. Recorded and mixed July–August 2021 in Montreal by Pat McDowall and mastered by Enormous Door, Deadly Intrusions features suitably festering artwork by Indonesian artist Ibay Arifin. It arrives on April 8 on CD and digital formats through Polish extreme merchants Selfmadegod, with Caligari Records handling the cassette version. Preorders can be made here.