Sex Swing: Type II (grey/cream swirl coloured vinyl) LP

In the realms of heavy amplification and monstrous riffage, one crucial ingredient can make the difference between an outfit doggedly hammering away at their chosen art and another whose graft is alchemically transformed into something of compelling fury and primal satisfaction. That ingredient is malevolence, pure and simple; the sense that something authentically vicious and debauched is going on at the root of the racket assaulting the sensibilities. Needless to say, Sex Swing - the London-based group whose mercurial and uncompromising onslaught now sees its second iteration to the wider world - have no shortage of this elixir.

Type II was recorded by Martin Ruffin at Hastings' Savage Studios and mixed at Bear Bites Horse by Wayne Adams. This mighty monument of swagger and malice also sees fit to add a certain amount of glitter to the trademark grit this time around. Just as the artwork from long-term collaborator Alex Bunn boasts a luminous sheen absent from the unsettling abjection of the sleeve of their 2016 debut on The Quietus Phonographic Corporation, so the rolling grooves and mantric hypnosis here boast a new-found structure and a feline sleekness fresh and unusual for this pugilistic outfit, just as Dan Chandler's brooding presence disguises a twisted lyricism. Nonetheless, this remains a band fundamentally obsessed with the expression of decadence and wrongdoing through the mediums of repetition and overloaded frequencies.

Opener "The Passover" hits like hammer to skull right from the off, a relative moment of calm soon being broken by an ungodly squall of horror from Webster's sax, before a fearsome and naggingly catchy debacle ensues akin to Suicide grappling with downers in dancefloor rapture. Elsewhere, rock abjection is filtered notably through an electronic prism, as krautrock grace and garage brawn engage in a strangely beguiling wrestling match to the death –  "Valentine's Day At The Gym" is this vision at its apotheosis, rising like a Birthday Party-esque phoenix from the ashes of bad decisions and late nights - a tapestry of croon and warped groove that gathers momentum and power on a pathway to a particularly handsome kind of oblivion.

Type II is more than the mere machinations of a rock band - it's a howl of malfunction rendered terrifyingly visceral. It's the lightning flash and unearthly roar of the primeval battle between Godzilla and Mechagodzilla that provokes awe and disquiet in the realm of fantasy, it's the haunted clangor of the faulty air conditioning unit that lurks in the anonymous office building yet lends it eerie ambience. It's man vs machine where discord becomes harmony, and it's a fearsomely invigorating spectacle to behold.