Ipecac Recordings release the new and second album from the trans-atlantic group Split Cranium - which features Faith Coloccia (Mamiffer, Mara), Aaron Turner (Mammifer, Sumac, Old Man Gloom and so much more), Nate Newton (Converge, Doomriders, Old Man Gloom), Tomi Lepp?nen (Circle, K-X- P) and Jussi Lehtisalo (Circle) - entitled I'm The Devil and I'm Ok. The self-titled debut was an exhilerating barrage of super-charged hardcore, replete with blitzkrieg riffing, stampeding pace, and gravel-throated ire, a ferocious homage to Nordic d-beat masters Terveet K?det and Anti Cimex. Six years later, their second album, I'm The Devi and I'm Ok comparitively explores the contrasts of melody and dissonance, opening the album with Popol Vuh-inspired keyboards by Faith Coloccia that saturate the ruthless reinterpretation of the Discharge template on Evil Hands. The contrasting breaths of sublime ambience serve to highlight the savagery abetted by bassist Nate Newton and Tomi Lepp?nen (Circle, K-X- P), making I’m The Devil and I’m Ok simultaneously more sonically rounded and more visceral and vicious. While Split Cranium continues to be driven by the blazing guitar malaise of Lehtisalo and the harrowing bellows of Turner, the melodic counterpoint provided by Newton on Wet Shadow, the ethereal vocals summoned by Coloccia on Ingurgitated Liquids and Death Bed – The Yellow Room, and the squalls of white noise on Whirling Dusk are a but a few of the components that knock I’m The Devil and I’m Ok off the axis of traditional d-beat hardcore. Some of the strongest records in the anarcho-punk canon have figured out ways to inject melody or push extremes without diffusing their punch or diminishing their hooks. Split Cranium retains the principal components of speed and vitriol while expanding their frequency spectrum into realms of both beauty and sheer ugliness, making I’m The Devil and I’m Ok a white-knuckle mind-melter in a realm of sterile imitations.
