My wife got back from work just now, walked into my office, and asked, “What are you listening to?” When I told her, she was like, “Brain Tourniquet? Well, A for effort on the name.” She’s right. That name rules. Even if you don’t like th abrasive music that Brain Tourniquet make, you have to respect what they bring to the game.
I like it, though. DC powerviolence heroes Brain Tourniquet always find fucked-up new things to do with extreme music. Back in 2023, for instance, they released …An Expression In Pain, a 20-minute album with an 11-minute title track; all the other songs were about a minute long apiece. I wrote a hardcore column about going to see the band play a warehouse venue that sadly no longer exists, and they played that 11-minute song in motherfucking full.
Today, Brain Tourniquet follow that LP with Sinking Deeper Into Madness, a lobotomy-based concept album. It sounds fucking unhinged even before its grand finale, a dizzying, ooze-encrusted six-minute doom-scuzz cover of the Beatles’ “Tomorrow Never Knows.” Here’s the Bandcamp explanation of the concept behind the LP:
Sinking Deeper Into Madness tells the story of an unnamed protagonist whose family urges him to get a lobotomy after experiencing a manic episode. The protagonist ultimately decides to go through with the procedure and experiences extreme bouts of joy, fear, regret, and remorse until his mind ultimately disintegrates into total emptiness.
Hell yeah, baby! The void! Bring it on! Dive in below.
Sinking Deeper Into Madness is out now on Iron Lung.
