REVIEW: DTRASH138 The Named CD reviewed at RockMidgets.com

"At the turn if the millennium, THE SHIZIT caused a stir in the underground with their fiery take on Digital Hardcore. Spouting revolutionary lyrics backed by an ear-destroying mashup of furious metal and brain-scrambling electronics, they sounded like riots on the streets. Main man JP Anderson now the force behind Rabbit Junk, has returned to [editor - project is called THE NAMED] to release eleven new blasts of noise entirely free of charge. He wants you to hear it and to share it.

This self-titled return positively seethes, boiling with the same intense fury as Gallows' Grey Britain. While this album does not have the digital assault of the band's original conception, its strongest moments come when they mix in more electronics; when 'The Shape Of Living Resistance' and Nailbomb cover 'Wasting Away' smash gigantic metal riffs, deathly roars and warping, trembling synths together, they make album highlights.

But what really surprises on this album is the lyrics. Where in the past THE SHIZIT's lyrical capacity was a little ham-fisted, it was music for clenched, raised fists, with a tendency to include "fight" as often as possible - here they open up a discomforting insight into the mind of a man not just angry at the state of the world and 'the system', but of how trapped he feels within it - "I think to myself, I just want to feel safe/Well I'm tired of looking for a prison to call home/Prison walls aren't strong enough to keep you safe" (from 'Civilisation Extermination'). What makes this all the more unsettling is how easy to relate to it is - "Does making it on your own/mean finding a boss?/Does emotional stability/mean not feeling what's been lost?/Live!" he implores us on 'The Shape Of Living Resistance'. It's a defiantly positive statement from a far from positive sound.

While more electronics would make this truly unstoppable, this more mature monster of an album is a vast improvement on its past incarnation. Sonically, this sounds like a city being levelled, but lyrically it's thinking of what could be rebuilt; a warning best delivered on menacing spoken-word piece 'Levels' : "The world I live in was constructed/ If worlds can be constructed why not make my own". These songs are the soundtracks to your frustrations and your self-depreciation, penned for anyone who feels trapped by the constraints of surviving in a modern world that hampers creativity and growth. It's the sound of vented anger at not just the world's lack of motivation and inescapable compliance with the norm, but your own. THE NAMED are no longer the sound of the revolution's bloody riots, but the reasoning behind it. Spread the word." -Rating: 4/5 by Phill May