���� Continuing to paint a vision of the American heartland as a narcotics-infested, dehumanizing hellhole, Fistula just keep crushing. We finally snagged this recent four-song EP from the Ohio scum-thugs, which pukes up a couple of originals as well as two covers that are grotesquely bent beneath the weight of Fistula's hateful sludge, and corroded by the potency of the chemical toxins seeping from their collective mass. The originals are primo Fistula, swarming with visions of drug addicted human detritus, horrific sexual enslavement, and rampant urban atrocity; "Wood Glue" and the awesomely titled "This Is Sodom, Not LA" are both blasts of snarling, anthemic hardcore punk whipped up in a shitcloud of sludgy riffage, speedy tempos and screeching, hateful vocals. Like other recent stuff from the band, it's all quite redolent of classic late-80s metalpunk, but heavier and filthier and utterly diseased.

���� The covers are really sick, though, signaling the sort of sonic sleaze these freaks abuse themselves with in their down time. The cover of Fang's "Destroy The Handicapped" is absolutely pulverizing, staying true to the obnoxious mean-spirited humor of the original but filtering it through Fistula's resin-encrusted, blown-out heaviness; and in Fistula's mitts, GG Allin's "I Love Nothing" is turned into a foul, feedback-infested, skull-slamming dose of putrid sludgepunk. Pretty fuckin' vile. Limited to five hundred copies, Weapon features more demented Scott Stearns artwork, as well as a rather Pushead-esque cover from Christopher Parry.