He Whose Ox Is Gored have long served as Seattle’s torchbearers for post-metal. Their meticulously woven compositions of brute guitars and symphonic keyboards capture a malicious fervor tempered by discipline and restraint. While there is genuine angst and sorrow knitted into those elaborate songs, there is also the hint that something much more uninhibited lies beneath the surface. Enter Fucked & Bound, the outlet for the Ox tribe to set aside the melody and math for raging d-beat hardcore. The musicianship is still razor sharp, but the exploratory dynamics of HWOIG are ditched in favor of bulldozing riffs and vocalist Lisa Mungo’s confrontational command of the stage. by Brian Cook