Welcome to your new dining hall. Soup of the day is pink ooze, mains are curdled gel or a mold injection, and they make a mean motor oil spritz: These are the options you’re forced to choose from in “Sour,” the song that gives Thirdface’s sophomore album, Ministerial Cafeteria, its name. Vocalist Kathryn Edwards mocks the provided lunch with a sneer: “Dietary degradation/ Be thankful for your shared crumbs!” On 2021’s Do It With a Smile, the Nashville quartet lit its experimental hardcore ablaze with self-described “primal anger” directed at external aggressors. Since then, Edwards has shifted her focus from cruel individuals to the crumbling systems upholding them. Hence why “Sour” takes aim at the special interest groups shaping what we consume, instead of the cooks or servers presenting it, even if the method of resistance is more or less the same: “Refuse to eat the bullshit this time.”
With knowledge comes strength, and Thirdface burst out the gate with bulging muscle mass on Ministerial Cafeteria. While they pummel punk and metalcore into an intriguing, unnaturally melodic pulp, Edwards tears into mental health issues (“Purify”) and the exploitation of power (“DOV”). On “Beneviolent,” she mocks those who would become servile to avoid discomfort: “Prosper from their guiding hand,” she says, “Be their blueprint.” If societal structures are built to fleece working class people without a care for their wellbeing, then Edwards proposes we flip the script to eradicate those methods. “You’re no longer needed,” she taunts on “Bankroll” over the album’s most jovial rock riff, “We will leave you behind.” Ministerial Cafeteria is sticky to the touch—with lyrics like “dripping between thighs,” “melt down the way,” “green goo scraped off the shelves”—and she presses the faces of those puppeteering society into the slime until they admit how uncomfortable it feels.
Thirdface strengthen the intensity of that message by firing on all hardcore cylinders. Drummer Shibby Poole leads the band through an intoxicating mix of punk, grindcore, death metal, and math rock. From the ever-evolving passages of opener “Mantras” to Maddy Madeira’s springboard bass on “Pure Touch,” Ministerial Cafeteria never considers slowing, not even for a standard hardcore breakdown. All four members remain locked in unison throughout the album, but especially for “Beneviolent,” a delirious mathcore showcase of guitarist David Reichley’s touchstones: the powerviolence of Infest, the psychedelia of Polvo, and the dexterity of Rorschach.
