New Yorkers PYRRHON sound absolutely batshit mental on this EP. The Brooklyn four-piece already have two full length albums out and "Growth Without End" is a decent appetiser before record number three arrives, but it's likely to scare off more people than it attracts. The band's stock in trade is highly technical Death Metal played with adrenaline spiking fury. It's not far off the likes of CRYPTOPSY or ULCERATE jamming with CONVERGE and is fourteen minutes of aural intensity akin to having the flesh blasted from your face, stitched back on and then blasted off again.

For starters, "Cancer Mantra" is a ludicrously overexcited opener. It's a short, violent blast of inhuman screams, manic drumming and deranged guitar work. It flashes by faster than Superman riding a bullet train and leads into "Forget Yourself," an even briefer outburst that could have been recorded in a lunatic asylum. This continues in a similarly unhinged way with "The Mass," to the extent that it's very easy to consume these first three songs thinking they're a single composition.

At least that is until "The Mass" enters its second half. Here, the influence of Jacob Bannon, Kurt Ballou et al makes itself felt as PYRRHON momentarily pump the brakes and lead into a stomping, feedback-heavy midsection that is by no means easy listening, but the closest they get to offering any kind of respite. By the closing seconds, Doug Moore is ranting about God-knows-what over more schizophrenic guitar riffs, before the Industrial-tinged "Viral Content" takes things in another head-spinning direction. This one plays out almost like a religious Sermon and the whole thing climaxes in the wanton destruction of "Turing's Revenge," which has about as much chance of appearing on the soundtrack to "The Theory Of Everything" as SKREWDRIVER have of winning a Mobo Award.

There's an impressive range of ideas crammed into these five songs and for anyone interested in offbeat Death Metal, PYRRHON are well worth looking up. That being said this is so thoroughly uncompromising that unless you're already a convert to Metal's more extreme side, it'll sound like a lot of insane noise and not much else. There's no gentle introductions or hooks to help newcomers in, "Growth Without End" just shoves your face into the gutter and holds it there while screaming obscenities in your ear. Difficult yes, but rewarding all the same.