I Exist - I: A Turn for the Worse - DARK RED COLORED VINYL 12" (Midnight Funeral)

Little more than a year on from their first show, Canberra’s I Exist have delivered their debut LP ‘I: A Turn for the Worse’. Punched out over a long weekend with engineer/mixer Jason PC of grind loons Blood Duster, the record builds on the template established with their 7” ‘Three Nails and a Book of Flaws’. While the group remains grounded in hardcore, here, their stoner, sludge and doom influences really come to the fore: the monolithic riffage on show echoes the likes of Electric Wizard, Eyehategod and Sleep. The album is still heavily geared towards the furious sub-two minute blasts the band is known for, but I Exist take full advantage of the LP format with a couple of extended tracks. The record’s centerpiece is undoubtedly ‘A-Bomb Blues’, an unfettered nine minute guitar workout colored by that staple of any rock record worth its salt: The Hammond. It’s rare for a band to emerge, on their debut, as the finished article, but ‘I: A Turn for the Worse’ is a remarkably assured record: drawing influence from a range of styles but beholden to none of them. And, as the title suggests, this is merely the first installment.