Power Trip: Nightmare Logic [SOUTHERN LORD]

Why you'll love it

This Southern Lord LP comes with a fold-out lyric insert. Nightmare Logic scored 86 on Metacritic, Loudwire named it the best metal album of 2017, and "Executioner's Tax (Swing Of The Axe)" won Best Metal Song at the Loudwire Music Awards.

This edition

• Fold-out lyric insert

About the album

Thirty minutes is not a long time, which is roughly the point. Power Trip came out of the Dallas hardcore scene playing thrash with punk manners, and on their second album they tightened every bolt, packing eight songs into half an hour and leaving no room for anybody to check their phone.

Producer Arthur Rizk, back for a second round after the debut Manifest Decimation, went for raw guitar tones and organic drums rather than modern polish, with vocals cut at Creep Records in Philadelphia. Guitarist Blake Ibanez and drummer Chris Ulsh wrote and arranged the music, and the late Riley Gale barked over it like a man reading out charges. "Soul Sacrifice" kicks the door in, "Firing Squad" and the title track gallop, and "If Not Us Then Who" and "Crucifixation" close things out at full tilt. Critics heard early thrash, Cro-Mags, Prong and Black Flag all boiled down together.

Pitchfork called them a platonic ideal of heavy metal escapism, and Rolling Stone ranked it among the year's best metal records. It was the album that carried the band from basement shows to the main stage, and it still clears a room faster than a fire drill.

Also at Kops: more Power Trip on vinyl · browse Metal

Tracklist

Listen

On Southern Lord (cat# LORD236), the 2017 album.