UNCULTIVATES are a gang of riff-totin’ outlaws hailing from Southern Ireland not Texas, though they’d likely have you believe otherwise. Their trade is mathy post-hardcore, delivered with the kind of serrated precision and unhinged theatricality that suggests they’re in on the joke but deadly serious about the craft. Barely out of the gate, they’ve already torn across the UK and Ireland alongside fellow noise merchants Gama Bomb, Hundred Year Old Man, Mastiff, Party Cannon and Codespeaker. In every town, city and backwater dive they roll through, UNCULTIVATES stage something closer to a hardcore rodeo than a conventional gig a flurry of riffs, chaos and probable dental damage.

The intro sets the tone with a wirey, banjo-tinged riff that feels less campfire singalong and more saloon brawl. From there, I Am Your God, Your Father and Your Boss lunges forward on spidery guitar lines and tightly coiled percussion, the drums snapping and pivoting beneath O’Callaghan’s gruff, throat-shredding vocals. It’s breath taking from the outset. “Great Minds Think of Mike” doubles down, all precision-engineered drum work and twitching fretboard acrobatics, while “Every Time I Wake Up on the Bonnet of a Different Car” is a particularly feral highlight its a frantic slab of hardcore that lurches between muscular breakdowns and razor-wire riffs.

O’Callaghan is the record’s not-so-secret weapon. His guttural screams on “Oliver” land like blunt-force trauma, commanding attention amid the rhythmic freefall. There’s a brief pause for air with “Rory’s Interlude” which trades distortion for acoustic guitars and a campfire lull where tins of beans are optional. Elsewhere, “Flatley” is another punisher of a track which is smartly structured, rhythmically slippery and bolstered by sharp, unfussy production. “Dread First” barrels ahead at full throttle, a fistfight in audio form, before “Rental Snake” detonates in a hail of blast beats and some of the record’s most deranged vocal performances.

Closer “The Ice Bed World Tour of North America” reveals a slightly more considered side to the band’s songwriting, suggesting there’s more beneath the swagger than pure abrasion. The question lingers are UNCULTIVATES a parody or a serious band? On the strength of these riffs, it hardly matters. There’s enough invention and sheer force here to push them well beyond novelty status so saddle up and get to know Uncultivates.