Bomb 20 - Field Manual

1. The Fall
2. Burn the Shit Down
3. Don't You Know
4. Ultimate Supremacy
5. You Killed Me First!
6. Anyday
7. We Can Fuck
8. Donutz & Blood
9. Innocent Bystanders
10. Lory vs. Bomb 20
11. No Left
12. If I Go Down
13. Round 2
14. Made of Shit!
15. La Belle
16. Just Came Close
17. Edutainment Break
18. Dumb
19. Hoover Boogie
20. Wonder What it Takes?

Since the Fever record is so fucking good, it made me think to dig a little deeper into my own DHR archives and see what I can find. Field Manual is the product of David Skiba, a one time antagonist of DHR head honcho and Bomb 20 muse, as well as the only full length produced under the Bomb 20 name. Digital Hardcore heads will recognize the sound instantly: frenetic breakbeats pushed to the breaking point, vocal samples chopped to fuck and blown apart, distorto synth gurgles and farts, all at tempos that make gabber seem like a Melvins record.

What sets Field Manual apart from the rest of the DHR pack, is not the politics (the firmly anti-capitalist, anti-authoritarian, anti-everything stance embodied in most of the label's roster), but the fact that this record bludgeons the listener so thoroughly over the head and never really lets up for the twenty track entirety. This is harsher than any Atari Teenage Riot single, jungle more fucked than any Cristophe de Babalon track. Field Manual manages to operate on a level of being so over the top, it reaches a plane populated by noise artists Masami Akita and Dominic Fernow. While the comparison may not be apt in the way that Bomb 20 is infinitely more danceable than either of the two former, the sheer amount of abrasion on display is impressive.

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