Boasting Beefheart references by the bucket-load, Anaesthesia Ad Infinitum is the Waterford/Carlow-based berserkers’ debut album and it’s a heady mix of Beach Boys’ melodies and (at times) blood-thirsty guitars with a healthy slice of lunacy thrown in for good measure. While the album opener (‘Dissociate’) takes a while to kick in, the incessant riffing of second song ‘No Easy Ride’ is a suitable sucker punch to the nether-regions, which sums up the album as a whole, really. Just when you think you’ve got Ilya K pegged down as being in a specific genre, they throw in drunken murder ballads (‘Weird Shapes’) or perversely poppy songs (‘She’s Got The Loveliest Eyes’) just to mess with our heads. On the whole it makes for a great listen that feels like a bit of a roller-coaster ride, so buckle up kids and don’t forget to scream when you want to go faster.
Key Track: ‘She’s Got The Loveliest Eyes’