Review
Planet B
Planet B

There’s been few bands in recent memory as polarizing as The Locust. Upon the first few listens, they sound like the aural equivalent of severed nerve endings after an industrial lathe accident. But if you stick with them - and particularly if you’ve ever had the pleasure of seeing them live, what once seemed all pandemonium and chaos becomes clear and focused, with a precision that is truly frightening.

One of the many masked men making up The Locust, was co-founder and bassist Justin Pearson, who now, with Planet B is almost becoming Mike Patton-esque with his vast array of side projects. Among them, Retox and Dead Cross, in which he plays alongside Patton. 

Planet B Is a two-man operation between Pearson and Producer Luke Henshaw. On paper, the teaming of these two is intriguing. On album, the payoff is big. This is an angry album, with angry beats to be worn like a Kevlar vest in an angry world. The two hammer through tunes like “Join A Cult” and “Mirror, Mirror, On The World” with an immediacy that looks and feels like a hardcore manifesto set to a collaborative score between John Carpenter and Bernard Hermann.

It becomes clear pretty quick that while these two don’t need a damn bit of help, they enlist some extra hitmen to help finish the job, like Kool Keith and Locust alumni Joey Karam and Gabe Serbian. The beats hit hard and Pearson’s one-man-gang-vocal styling drives a strong message home that this isn’t a band to fuck with. There’s an energy and a vibe here that demands attention and on tunes like “Manure Rally” and the reserved-by-comparison but no less impactful "Big Karma", it brings to mind the dark 80s and 90s. When Ministry and Killing Joke could be heard coming from the shadows like a thick fog. Planet B continue that tradition. Continue that rage against the unwanted, unwarranted and undeserved dystopia we find ourselves in.