“Fascist Insect” has a few connotations: It’s a reference to the Symbionese Liberation Army’s slogan, it’s a political metaphor for fear-mongering pricks, and it calls to mind the kind of bug that’ll mate with you — then rip your head off. All three are applicable to the new Cleveland band Fascist Insect, the latest in the region’s long legacy of industrial crushing-machines that are more abrasive than an eyeball full of sand.

Heavier than most metal, the trio’s debut is a technoid-rock assault that has plenty in common with Ministry and Keratoma: laser-gun guitars, 1,000-RPM mechanical beats, and indecipherable high-pitched yelps that sound like the result of torture. Some of the words are intelligible: “Glue TV” lifts ominous sound bites from Republican presidents. And the grind-your-face-off disc oddly ends on an up note, with a cover of Carburetor Dung’s “Happy” closing the berserker frenzy with a shot of classic rock — this is Cleveland, after all.

This article appears in Mar 28 – Apr 3, 2007.