AK-747s

I Love What You’ve Done With the Place (Yggdrasil)

I Love What You’ve Done With the Place is like nothing heard since the salad days of the mid-’90s nihilism underground found in Maximumrocknroll. The long-standing frightening musical brainchild of Vancouver’s defiantly unapologetic punk-politico l’enfant-terrible Rob Nuclear, the AK-747s deliver yet another emotionally wrenching clutch of spitting invective, disguised as ear-splitting doom rock.

The eldritch assault of the AK-747s (featuring the powerful back-attack of drummer Craig Wigby and bassist Julien Gripp)
transfixes the listener for the tensest half-hour known to all humanity, with knuckles clenched white.

Nuclear’s warbling, distorted vocal howling and Jericho-shattering riffery are nothing short of agonized battle-cries against the faceless legions of millionaires and dirty cops and uncaring elitists of all stripes. I Love What You’ve Done With the Place is a terrifying, blood-smeared aural testament delivered minutes before the firing squad. As opposed to the innocuous postpunk pablum served up by dwindling Trustafarians with greasy bangs and scrubbly beards and overdriven pawnshop guitars who yearn to be fawned over in Vice.

The AK-747s yearn for nothing of the sort, not with songs like “Real Estate”, “Shitty Deal”, or “The Language of Teeth.” This is honest 21st-century outrage and fury, delivered by burning hearts and burning minds who Truly Fucking Mean It. Listen at your own risk. And at your own enlightenment.