The first album from Tampa graveyard rippers Church Whip follows a trail of tapes and 7"s that have trickled out over the past two years, none of which I've been able to get my hands on due to super-limited runs, etc., so I was stoked to finally get something from these guys in the shop. Made up of members of a number of Sunshine State hardcore outfits like Cult Ritual, Divisions and blackened punks Horrid Cross, Church Whip plays a gruff, hooky brand of blackened punk that falls somewhere in between the locomotive crust of Discharge, classic Motorhead-style speed metal, the noise-damaged insanity of GISM and the mangiest strains of first wave black metal, a concoction that coughs up a number of vicious, catchy songs across the rampaging thrash outbursts of Psychedelic Nightmare. The instrumental "Looming" opens the record with a rush of ominous thunder and eerie guitar shred that vaguely resembles something off the Phantasm soundtrack being played by a gang of black metal guitarists...and then they kick in with the killer blackened punk of "Ruin The Vision II", where things really get moving; it's a driving, melodic metallic punk number that sets the stage for the rest of Nightmare. The songs that follow continue to blend fast paced hardcore riffs and pounding drumming with scorched, feral screams and some fantastic darkened guitar melodies, the music often overwhelmed with blasts of cavernous reverb and chaotic feedback that add to the music's frantic, unhinged feel, the vocals sometimes billowing out into clouds of monstrous urk. This all contributes to a hateful, misanthropic vibe, met with other weirdness like the pots'n'pans percussive freak-out and din of madhouse screams that take over "Nightmare Jackals Advance", and that vintage horror-soundtrack sound that re-emerges on "Desolate Path", where minimal synths drone eerily over a somber guitar lead. Killer stuff that I would highly recommend to any of you guys into the blackened punk metal of Midnight and psychedelic necro-rippers Syphilitic Vaginas. Limited to five hundred fity copies, on black vinyl.