SALVATION have always been experts at hammering out no frills, no nonsense, no bullshit noise rock, and on their brand-new Year Of The Fly, they’ve perfected their take on the genre, sounding cleaner, meaner, and bigger than ever before.

Initially the solo project of vocalist and guitarist Jason Sipe in St. Louis, SALVATION became the trio it is today four years ago when Sipe moved to Chicago and linked up with a pair of punk and hardcore stalwarts: bassist Victor Riley and drummer Santiago Guerrero. Combining the relentless rhythms of Melvins with the fried melodic sense of Bleach-era Nirvana, SALVATION explodes like a deranged blast from the past, still sounding fresh and exciting, no matter how indebted to the glory days of noise rock they are.

For Year Of The Fly, the band hunkered down with engineer Mike Lust at legendary Chicago studio Electrical Audio. They had three days, a roll of two-inch tape, and a batch of killer cuts. In the past, the band had recorded every aspect of their songs live in the studio, with no extra time to fuss or overthink, but this time the approach was slightly different: the album’s nasty, aggressive base tracks were laid down live, and they later took time to overdub vocals, pianos, organ, and other artistic embellishments. Mastered by by Carl Saff at Saff Mastering, the result is a beautifully raw recording rife with crushing noise punk that takes sudden turns into unexpected but welcome heady realms. Opening with the brutal grind of “Slit My Throat,” the album soon unfolds into territory the band hasn’t touched on before, like the damaged, pensive, acoustic cut “Failure,” and the spooky, minimal organ drones of album closer “Delusions Of Grandeur.” An expanded sonic palette aside, Year Of The Fly is undeniably a smasher front-to-back, the sound of a band at the height of its power. – Earsplit Compound