Are you looking for the perfect soundtrack for a grueling weightlifting session on Doomsday? Well, look no further, as Montréal’s Cell Press concocts an edgy-yet-sophisticated ooze of jazzy punk, grindcore, noise rock, and sludge on the debut LP Cages, that’ll have your muscles burning hotter than the world around you.
Think Mad Max set in a neo-northern Canadian desert tundra wasteland in the year 2500, but rooted in sins committed by the powerful few in the present day. Guitar riffs growl and shout with distortion that will burst your veins while your skin boils under drums beating with the intensity of the eternally blazing sun overhead. Do you think that’s it? Throw in lead vocalist Sean Arsinian’s crackling wails that alert sudden and immediate death like a Geiger counter dipped in the only available drinking water. The extremity of this vision may seem a tad depressing, but Cell Press ensures tracks deliver ecstatic grooves, best exemplified in the single “Original Uranium Baby,” that revels in the ecstasy of traversing this hellscape in attempts to reclaim it. Training to fistfight the evil powers that rot our world is no easy task, but Cages provides the energy required to keep you invigorated the whole journey.
Hailing from Montréal, Cell Press is unafraid to reference the city in many of their track titles: including “Kissed by a Morose on Mont Royal” on Cages, and “Blacked out in Verdun” on their 2020 self-titled EP, which fans of the sound should check out to satisfy those cravings for more. And with a band name borrowed from the 2001 documentary “The Mark of Cain,” about Russian gulag tattoo culture, you know you’re going to be dealing with some really bad dudes. So keep your eyes on the prowl for future releases.
