Nightstick - "Ultimatum", 1998

"Ultimatum" was released exactly one year after the debut album "Blotter," and it represents a more focused effort for Nightstick—if "focused" can even describe anything from these Massachusetts maniacs. The production sounds more balanced, even though the songs were recorded at different studios; the discrepancies are barely noticeable and not overly distracting, especially since the band's sound is so sludgy and unpolished that a slightly more or less overdriven guitar tone or uneven mixing levels between tracks make little difference. The album is slightly more listenable and less ear-piercing than "Blotter," which some might see as a drawback for a sonically aggressive band like Nightstick; however, it remains a record likely to repel anyone unaccustomed to such uncompromising musical harshness. In other words, the band didn't sell out; the album is just a bit more coherent than the absolutely shitbat crazy debut.

The production is still punchy, deliciously warm, and analog-sounding, with the trio performing live in the studio in their usual jam session-style, psychedelic approach. This time, the album features all original tracks, with just one medley combining Hector Berlioz's classic piece "Dream of the Witches' Sabbath" and Discharge's "Massacre of Innocence (Air Attack)" to fulfill the cover song quota. These renditions are highly effective and extremely doomy, with the Discharge song in particular being deconstructed to the point of near unrecognizability. The album's lyrics seem to be more politically charged than before, conveying an anti-establishment sentiment and featuring several samples from speeches by American government figures such as Colin Powell and George Bush on tracks like "Ultimatum: 'Cut It Off, Then Kill It'" and "Ultimatum: 'He... Is... Dead... Wrong.'" Both instrumentals move along heavy, downtuned doom riffs driven by Alex Smith's distorted bass, paired with intensely reverbed noise guitar terrorism from Cotie Cowgill. There's even an out-of-control saxophone guest appearance reminiscent of similar experiments by Siege, the former hardcore band of drummer Rob Williams (see the song "Grim Reaper" for reference).

The rest of the material consists of filthy sludge metal riffs, often repeated throughout most of each song, such as the massive "The Pentagon," which also features filtered vocals. There are some unexpected speed-ups, like on the punkish "Pig in Shit," which even displays some unusual, vaguely Danzig-esque, double-tracked vocal lines and a solid guitar solo, or the more immediate, up-tempo "United Snakes." "4 More Years" features droning, big heavy chords paired with shouted vocals drenched in slapback delay and noisy guitar breaks, crafting a dense wall of sound that approaches industrial rock. It's probably the most structured and accomplished track on the album and a good example of what Nightstick can achieve when they put more thought into the songwriting.

There are some filler tracks as well, such as the lengthy ambient/noise interlude "August 6, 1945: A. Flight B. Fright" or the rather superfluous live reprise of the title track placed as the album closer, which sounds almost identical to the studio version except for even more psychedelic guitars.

Overall, "Ultimatum" is probably a more accomplished record than "Blotter," but it lacks some of the nihilistic quality of its predecessor. "Blotter" truly felt like an acid trip gone terribly wrong, seemingly performed by lunatics intent on sounding as annoying and hostile as possible. In contrast, "Ultimatum" comes across as a calculated sonic terrorist attack against the powers that be, but in the process, the band lost some of the hallucinatory madness of its debut. The band is still far from sounding civilized, and the weirdness remains, but it's not as fiercely misanthropic or outright unnerving as before. That said, it's an album worth checking out if you want something that doesn't sound like the usual run-of-the-mill Electric Wizard clones and retains a more dangerous edge than the standardized doom metal pot-smokers who increasingly crowded the underground scene throughout the 2000s.

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