Vibes

 Octagrape - Aura Obelisk (2016) 320

San Diego’s Octagrape has been steadily hinting at how they were ready to drop the megaton on us all now they followed through. Overstuffed with 19 songs drilled at full blast, Aura Obelisk stands as one of the most engaging audio obstacle courses in years. Completed with a core lineup of Glen Galloway and Ely Moyal (Trumans Water) and Jason Begin (Christie Front Drive), Octagrape delivers bent, super-catchy pop, and encrusts it with so much noise and leftfield blast patter that it feels like a time machine back to 1994. The sheer scope of musical filth across this thing, and the particular ways in which it pulls together a marathon hang sesh out of itself in terms of piling death-defied stunts one after another … you just gotta hear it.  No kidding. Wouldn’t even try to describe it. Jump in, head first, get your shit rearranged free o’ charge. (Doug Mosurock)