"On their first vinyl effort, ASID’s almost monomaniacal devotion to gutting hardcore of its accretions of style and refinement and revelling in its basest instincts of power and fury is on rude display. Pounding forward with a jackhammer beat, ASID burn through tough riffs birthed choking in a dirty glut of muggy fuzz that conjures up the sickened tone of something like Disclose's Nightmare or Reality 12". Pathetic Flesh is an intense explosion of a record, chucking up the rudimentary stomp of Fever, the brawny pogo of Bootlicker, the panic-stricken downhill rush of the title track. This record is a total hardcore statement, with stunning art from the singer Tin, whose tortured yell struggles painfully against the storm of the noise, breaking through with ugly anguish." Joe Briggs

Our take: Debut vinyl from this UK hardcore band. Asid is a 5-piece with a big and burly sound, and while they scatter a few interesting lead guitar parts across Pathetic Flesh (like the dive bombs on “Cave to Pressure” or the more metallic lead on the title track), they use the extra heft to make their simple and brutal riffs sound even burlier rather than adding rhythmic or harmonic complexity. This bulldozer approach gives moments of Pathetic Flesh an early death metal vibe, which I imagine isn’t an influence so much as a common approach of making music as primitive, brutal, and punishing as possible. More obvious influences are early Agnostic Front (particularly on the first track) and S.H.I.T.’s catchy pogo-hardcore (“Bootlicker”). For me, the highlights are the off-kilter main riff on “Paranoia Puremania” and the cacophonous closing track “Riastrad,” which reminds me of the reprise of the title track at the end of Discharge’s Why?. While Asid doesn’t reinvent the wheel, Pathetic Flesh maintains the standard of quality we expect from La Vida Es Un Mus.