I listened to this album last winter and decided to pass. Big mistake!

Thirdface’s “Ministerial Cafeteria” is beautiful savagery—slam-dance energy courses through body-blow rhythms and face-raking vocals.

I rescued my download of this album from the recycle bin after “Sour” played on some playlist. The song offers so much.

It’s the most measured and spacious song on the album. The bass guitar steps up, and a patient but hard-hitting beat stalks menacingly over a claustrophobic guitar. The effect is a gross, dangerous tension.

But urgency and abundance power most of the songs. The exemplar is the groove-chewing “Pure Touch.” This fucker is exciting—a nearly perfect song with its ferocity and change-ups. A coiling guitar riff sounds like rock n’ roll under spittle-fly vocals. The song is part Dillinger, part Jesus Lizard. I also love the spastic, syncopated “Bankroll.” The song runs into a few danceable grooves, including a great harmonic-driven riff near the 1:20 mark.

The Nashville hardcore-punk quartet released “Ministerial Cafeteria,” its second full-length, on November 1, 2024, via Exploding in Sound.

I mean, don't most of us wish we were back in November 1, 2024?