review by: Roberto Martinelli

Like the other 7" reviewed in this issue, Mauthausen also sounds killer, but I’m tacking on a disclaimer that you may have to listen to it on my roommate’s stereo to get the full effect.

Seriously, though, the three songs that are on display here that are taken from the full length The Past: Vindictive Sadisms of Petty Bureaucrats (reviewed in last issue and in my top 10 of 2002!) are superb. Thankfully, the track “Mauthausen” and its soul crushing choral interlude made the cut. The emotion conveyed by this track is the perfect aural counterbalance to the hauntingly provocative artwork of a Nazi in the process of hanging a man while a girl dangles on the end of her own rope. All three people in the picture have the same expression. It hits you right there in your gut, just like this crushing band. (8/10)