Car Bomb- Tiles Whisper Dreams EP
Car Bomb – Tiles Whisper Dreams EP
Solid Grey
Release Date: 01/08/2025
Review by Rory Bentley
8/10
It’s been nearly 6 years since Long Island Mathcore anarchists Car Bomb have given us any new music to lacerate our poor ear drums with, and although they’ve kept things going with their incendiary live shows, their recorded presence has been greatly missed. It seems a long time since that 2017 triple bill they played with Code Orange and Gojira. Whilst the latter has gone from strength to strength and the former is now on hiatus, Car Bomb have been almost forgotten by many.
Fortunately this savage little aperitif of razor-blade, angular bursts of audio violence is here to remind us what a great band Car Bomb we’re and still very much are. It may only be three tracks and it barely clears thirteen minutes, but “Tiles, Whispers, Dreams” packs more into this little EP than most of the noodley Prog bands you’d care to name can muster over the course of a gruelling double album.
‘Blindsides’ comes in like a more wiry Meshuggah- like triplets, squeaking, sliding fret runs and barked monotonous growls that are occasionally punctuated by smooth melodic vocals that work better than they have any right to. Elliot Hoffman puts in a blinding shift behind the kit, sometimes sounding robotically precise, sometimes on the verge of falling off his stool and pounding his sticks through bloodied hands.
‘Patoxysm’ comes on like a more beefed up Dillinger, with Michael Dafferner channeling the percussive bellow of Jens Kidman, and there’s even some bouncy Nu-Metal-esque bits. Despite being utterly bonkers, the song feels cohesive and never hits the wackier territory that the likes of Between The Buried And Me hit where it verges on annoying and indulgent.
The title track veers into sludgier territory, with elastic riffs and bottom strings flapping around like an old man’s bollocks in a gale. The song constantly feels on the verge of collapse either through slowing down so much that it melts into the ether, or speeding up the point of combustion. And then just like that it’s over.
This has left me salivating for a new Car Bomb full length, and I really hope that when they hit the road again they can recapture some of that pre-pandemic momentum, because we need bands this vicious and thrilling in the underground more than ever.
‘Paroxysm’ Official Music Video
TRACKLISTING:
01. Blindsides
02. Paroxysm
03. Tiles Whisper Dreams
LINKS:
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