10", Blue in Purple Vinyl
Topshelf Records (2022) US
An Insult to the Sport is a split offering from the genre-defiant groups They are Gutting a Body of Water and A Country Western. Elements of breakcore, shoegaze, and obtuse slacker rock find home on An Insult, at times with no bridge at all between the disparate styles. In TAGABOW’s “The Brazil”, a stop-on-a-dime is the only thing that separates hazy slowcore and adventurous drum n bass, unambiguous evidence of the band’s penchant for iconoclast composition. A Country Western’s side of the split entertains similar stylistic mashups, opening with the atmospheric jungle of “Lung” before lurching into the alt-rock “Keeping up with the Joneses”, whose fuzzed-out lead riff calls back to bygone eras. On paper, the combination of styles may read as cacophonous or incompatible, but the end result is instead a measured contrast of sounds, a reflection of the inescapable influence of our chaotic time and the groups’ environments.