FACS: Void Moments – “hellish walls of sound”

Born out of the ashes of Chicago underground stalwarts, the brilliant Disappears, in 2017 Brian Case and Noah Leger joined forces with Alianna Kalaba (We Ragazzi and touring member for Cat Power) to form FACS.

After their 2018 debut, the needle-thin spidery offerings of Negative House, the trio return with Void Moments, a thick-clouded atmospheric affair cloaked in a new shade of darkness.

If there were an album to sound just like its namesake then look no further.

The opening track, Boy, is a bitter spoken-word summoning with an array of angular riffs, tin-can drone and a dagger-wielding rhythm.

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Teenage Hive follows and equally twists the knife with apocalyptic atmospherics that knocks you completely off balance, dragging you into a sweaty haze of uncertainty.

The raw sprawling noise of Casual Indifference provides the backbone to Void Moments in something that runs close to the periphery of industrial music. Then there’s Void Walker and Lifelike, a pair of tracks that strike as a double-whammy of pummelling malaise riddled dissonance.

The closing number in Dub Over is FACS showing off their gentler side, but don’t let this fool you. Despite the drop in pace, its hellish walls of sound still remain embellished in an acerbic tone which is rife throughout Void Moments.

Where the world is littered with loss-leader post-punk acts selling cheap idealism, FACS are far removed from this, unleashing a sprawling rancour that feels as if it were conceived from the belly of a junkyard.

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It’s a fitting representation of a style of music that has become in vogue, but while many these days use it as some cheap badge of honour, FACS stay true to the origins.

There’s only a handful of acts around at the moment doing this and FACS are most certainly one of them.

With Void Moments, FACS rumble through the sludgy furrows of this diseased world where they serve their art on an equally grim platter.

Void Moments is out now via Trouble In Mind.