Imagine a nice weekend in the wine-filled golden valleys of Napa, California. There you are: laid back, enjoying a nice blood-red glass of pinot noir in your salmon cashmere button-up. Down the road, you spot a silver faded Hyundai Santa Fe rolling down the grapevine hills, and your peaceful birdsong and fancy cheese-eating Sunday is suddenly crushed underfoot by some absolutely destructive hardcore blaring from this asshat’s windows.

I’m sorry, but this asshat is me, Connor “Burrito Boy” Benson, and the music ruining your trip is END’s newest release Splinters From An Ever-Changing Face. In my defense, you can’t help but blast this delicious ruinous music, and well… my AC is broken, so my windows had to be let down.

Ryan and I both agree that you must crank the volume dial so far right that the knob shatters in your hands (I hope that’s a cheap repair). END constructed this beast with bone-snapping riffs, jaw-cracking drums, and a mix of garroting vocals. There also lurk various tension-grabbing atmospheric textures and peculiar asylum-like recordings just to set the mood. The lyrics are well crafted as they unleash frustration with religion and the self. The vocals themselves are bled with emotion, and at times are layered to inflict double the head trauma. At one point on my way back from camping above the Napa region, I found myself listening to the track “Sands of Sleep” several times over. The grooving apocalyptic vibes it gave off really made me want to off-road into the scorched pine landscape. Of course, you know I would be thundering the album for all the woodland critters to hear!

END is a hardcore supergroup based primarily out of New Jersey, with other members spread across the country. The project is led by guitarist Will Putney from Fit For An Autopsy. Other members consist of vocalist Brendan Murphy (Counterparts), guitarist Greg Thomas (ex-Misery Signals, Zombie Apocalypse), drummer Billy Rymer (The Dillinger Escape Plan), and bassist Jay Pepito (Reign Supreme). They released their first EP From the Unforgiving Arms of God back in 2017, and their newest release arrived in this world on June 5, 2020. I can only hope that once all this pandemic crap ends, I can experience END in person, only to get pink-misted by their amps.