Cover image for HINTS The Way to Function, by Myke Pelly
Cover image for HINTS The Way to Function, by Myke Pelly

HINTS
The Way to Function
(self-released)

**** (out of 5)

Seattle drummer Myke Pelly has dismounted the great power-gloom-rock band Haunted Horses and gone solo with HINTS. His debut release under this handle retains the unrelenting darkness of his previous group and adds more industrial grime and grind and contains the sort of punishing drum work that would make Killing Jokeโ€™s Paul Ferguson or PiLโ€™s Martin Atkins proud. The Way to Function clocks in at under 10 minutes, making its strident points with admirable concision and concussiveness. That it came out on Halloween is probably not coincidental. This shit is scary, but in a decidedly non-corny, post-industrial-wasteland way, thankfully. To paraphrase Steven Jesse Bernstein, more of this noise, please.

Dave Segal is a journalist and DJ living in Seattle. He has been writing about music since 1983. His stuff has appeared in Gale Research’s literary criticism series of reference books, Creem (when...