Once in a while, Torstraßen Festival buckles up its seatbelt and ventures into the nether regions of veritable noise. As evidence we offer you the examples of two past artists: the Berlin black metal band Sun Worship (2014) and the thrashcore group Piss (2016). This year, Cuntroaches might just convince us that noise discovers its truest self in the hardcore trio operating on the precipice of noise-punk. Descriptions of this band in hitherto-unknown (by us) publications like Maximum RocknRoll or Terrorizer drop the following adjectives: “chaotic,” “relentless,” “insane,” “bestial,” “savage,” “feral,” “brutal.” Their two releases, which Martina, one of the band members, sent us via an e-mail with the complementary close “Kind Regards,” reveal a sensory overload of apocalyptic proportions—gritty guitar distortion challenges overdriven drum tricks, uncontrolled noise, and screams into the unknown. But as grim as the music is, it’s actually more about the joy generated via uncontrolled sound production. The trio’s hypnotizing sonic force heads full-throttle for the abyss, lauding nothingness and blueprinting the end of the world, thereby effectively providing a one-band antithesis of this year’s festival theme. Keywords: fatalism, nihilism—to hell with forever! End of story. That’s all, folks. No Future!

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