“Megasilmax” is electric St. Louis post-punk and garage rock, scalding and salving and adequately seditious. It is also the beautiful death knell of Lumpy Records. After a litany of shared releases, Ten Years of Trauma is a compilation adroitly made up of selections from Trauma Harness’ digital or limited cassette runs.
The whole set of tracks is electric, radiating the joy of making art with chums. What at first seems tangled –synths dissecting the channels, askance percussive melodic phrasing, momentum shifting slightly ahead of the BPM in a manner which defies the space–on closer inspection is ornately structured behind a fever.
After and before “Megasilmax” it carries on evincing and delivering, and then a compilation built across a decade feels like a solid record, built to be collectively perceived. The sound is established throughout with a kind of unified vision and purpose. The standards are set and then met in each attempt, goalposts not so much as swaying in the breeze. The digital is $6 and vinyl in a set of 500 for $17.
Plainly & Painfully 