“I do believe that someone- or something- wants this world to burn…”- and thus it begins. I was highly impressed by 2009’‘A Silent Mantra of Rage,’ so when I received the newest EP from Vendetta Music’s W.A.S.T.E. (short for ‘we all seek entropy’) to review, I was pretty excited. The San Diego-based act’s rousing, electric-charged live show at the Until Death festival back in August only reaffirmed that W.A.S.T.E. is one of the best powernoise outfits in industrial- the band’s latest study in the architecture of violence, ‘Liquor, Drugs, and Hate,’ is a shocking, veritable bloodbath of an album.

What we get here are 7 new tracks, and some nice remixes to close things out. Like the aforementioned quote above, that’s what this album is- the sound of the world burning, and W.A.S.T.E. is pouring on the gasoline: ‘Want This World to Burn’ is pure W.A.S.T.E.: distorted bass, crunchy, ear-splitting beats, and aggressive-as-fuck. ‘Scab Collector’ opens in chaos, like some fractured transmission from a snuff film, until destroying your speakers with blood-curdling screams and truly angry, static bass.

‘Steel Toed Rampage’ commences with a sample from the cult movie ‘True Romance’, before stomping into a shockingly violent 10 minute noise tirade that bludgeons the listener into submission with drums that literally sound like gunshots. ‘Sometimes You Don’t Come Back’ is a serene, atmospheric piece that took me aback a little-this ambient piece provides a grayish, reverberating fog of intermission and remoteness before more machine flagellation begins. ‘Butcher Knife’ is another more atmospheric track, but slightly heavier and eases us back into the familiar modus operandi.

The combination of rhythmic noise and vicious power electronics on tracks such as ‘Still Drunk, Still Crazy’ and ‘Part One of Some Shit to Come’ hammer away at the listener’s eardrums, while some winding grooves soar in the background- a flicker of hope amidst the chaos. It is this attention to detail and subtle additions to the mix that separate W.A.S.T.E. from your standard powernoise outfit- there is, quite simply, a lot more going on in these songs besides oontz and random sampling- the atmosphere that enshrouds the listener is disturbing, compelling, and exigent. Remixes of ‘Omega 3,’ ‘Scab Collector’, and ‘Mediaface’ close out the record, with Synascape’s sinister, truculent take on ‘Mediaface’ being the immediate standout.

‘Liquor, Drugs, and Hate’ is a dizzying, vulgar display of power (noise); Vuxnut’s (Shane Englefield) grinding, cacophonous Frankenstein’s monster should easily please its core audience, while also converting some new faces to the cause. After nearly an hour of rude, powernoise through which the band drags us kicking and screaming down the dank hallway to our fate of entropy, hopefully a small percentage of listeners can survive the experience- one thing is for sure: when all is said and done, there will be a lot of blood on the dancefloor.