Kaleidoscope's new LP swells unsteadily into existence, with the tinkle of half-jazzy drums filtering through an industrial gloom. It's a sign that what is to come isn't your standard down-the-line hardcore offering. Tittle track After The Futures_, for instance, opens with a languorous guitar stab that wouldn't be out of a place on a drone or noise record, a brooding rumble like a distant closing door in an warehouse, before the song tumbles into gear, Shiva enunciating the lyrics with a sharp-tongued Jerry A-like clarity. From the chomp of Sigint --> E.K.I.A., the deathrock swells swooping out from the itchy insistent guitar line of Crocodile Tears to deep thrum of Soft Cage, After The Futures_ is full of moments of punk broken and reconstituted, familiar structures and beats rearranged in the uncomfortable clamour into something wilder and weirder. It's about sustained tension before a riff kicks in, a solo looking like it's about to soar before being broken sharply off into a thorny keening. A punk record fractured and sliced-through, twisted into fresh shape and shining with a razor's gleam. (Joe Briggs)
