There comes a point where originality steps aside and honesty takes control. On Forgeries (72–84), their eleventh full-length, -(16)- return to the raw impulse that first pulled them into loud rooms and bad ideas: taking the music they love and reshaping it through devotion, distortion, and lived experience.
Released in collaboration with Heavy Psych Sounds, Forgeries (72–84) is a covers album that functions less as homage and more as possession. These are not replicas, but translations — songs absorbed over decades and pushed back out, bruised, altered, and unmistakably filtered through the band’s weight, fatigue, and intensity. As with all great covers, the goal here isn’t mimicry, but revelation.
Spanning material originally released between 1972 and 1984, the selections are unified not by genre, but by necessity. Each track documents obsession, influence, and the urge to steal what matters and make it unrecognizable enough to call your own. Iconic, unsettling artwork by Marald completes the ritual.
Formed in 1991 in Santa Ana, California, -(16)- emerged from the Southern California skate scene and helped define the foundations of sludge through a sound shaped by hardcore, metal, and underground noise. Across decades, lineup changes, personal struggles, and relentless touring, the band has remained fiercely committed to writing heavy, uncompromising music. In recent years, albums such as Lifespan of a Moth, Dream Squasher, Into Dust and Guides for the Misguided reaffirmed their relevance, earning critical acclaim and cementing their reputation as a devastating live act.
Forgeries (72–84) stands as both thank-you note and theft — a reminder that all music worth a damn is borrowed, broken, and passed on.
