Review & Full Album Premiere: Hibernaut & Face Pulp, Split LP
This Friday, March 6, marks the release on What’s Left Records of the new split between Utah’s Hibernaut and Arizona’s Face Pulp. The 36-minute outing brings enough pummel for the whole class, to be sure, but each of the two bands approaches that standard from their own angle. Cross-genre splits aren’t anything new, but neither are they necessarily the norm — if you have comparative percentages to cite, I’m happy to look at your spreadsheets — and it’s important to remember there aren’t rules about these things anyway. Thus, raw, thrash-ready heavy sludge rock gives way to metallic grindcore and any way you go, the normies are punching out. Aggression wins the day and this too is in ready supply.
There is an evolution taking place in Hibernaut‘s sound that was evident on last year’s Obsidian Eye (review here) and that continues here. The double-guitar four-piece present four tracks and start with the driving “Mark of Shame” and “Intermundium,” both nasty in tone and blending punk and metal. Guitarist Dave Jones reminds of Sepultura in the vocals for the eight-minute “Bastardized Cultivation,” but there’s an organ in “Intermundium” and the subsequent “Tongueless” toys with Crowbarian this-is-slow-and-we’re-playing-it-even-slower nod before its pickup, and an engaging back and forth takes place before “Bastardized Cultivation” pushes out hard and fast on the lines where one style ends and another begins. I don’t know if they wrote it knowing they’d be sharing space with an extreme metal band, but it certainly suits the occasion. The point is it becomes part of a deceptively broad reach across 
the balance of the release at 23 minutes.
Part of that, of course, is that even the longest Face Pulp song, which is their leadoff “Ups and Downs and Crap” (4:09) on side B, is shorter than the shortest Hibernaut song (which is “Intermundium” at 4:29). The Flagstaff unit, as they would, present more material in less time, with five tracks the other four of which are under three minutes long, and the primary difference in “Ups and Downs and Crap” is in the in-context-extended intro, which goes for about a minute. But by the time the Napalm-in-the-’90s chug kicks in, it’s clear they’re onto a different kind of fury, and “Dicks, Pins and Needles” bears that out, less with the studio-sharpened precision than some modern grind, but given a more extreme sound through the production and that slowdown later in “Dicks, Pins and Needles,” which is over and into “The One You Forgot” soon enough, building to a ferocity but never actually losing control any more than it wants to.
Face Pulp are likely to be too metal for some, just as Hibernaut are invariably too sludge for some. I’ve said a thousand times that it’s the nature of extreme works to alienate more than they bring in, and that will be a factor here, but Face Pulp are no more unipolar in their intent than were their compatriots, as “I’ll Need Proof of Humanity” and the slamming “Stereotypical Paths” close out like they’re in competition to see which one can cram the most bludgeoning into two minutes. I don’t know who wins, but I know your frontal lobe will take the brunt of it. You could say the same of the entire split.
With all the glee of tenderized meat, then, the full split is streaming below, prior to release. More info follows from the PR wire.
Please enjoy:
In Spring 2026, out of the American West rises a two-headed beast of riffs and rage. Joining forces for a split LP, Utah’s stoner juggernauts Hibernaut and Arizona’s grinding death-dealers Face Pulp join forces to release an album made of noise and nasty intentions.
Following up Hibernaut’s lauded “Obsidian Eye” and Face Pulp’s split with AZ native grind thrashers DogsThrowSpears, the two outfits deliver a collection of 9 tracks from their respective dark corners of the heavy underground, captured on vinyl through Colorado Springs’ What’s Left Records.
Hibernaut will also be playing the first annual HUFR Fest in Denver, Colorado on April 24th at bar 404 and are working on their 3rd full length studio album.
Hibernaut – Salt Lake City, Utah
Dave Jones – Guitar, Vocals
Zach Hatsis – Drums
Josh Dupree – Bass
Matt Miller – Lead Guitar
Face Pulp – Flagstaff, Arizona
Steve – Vocals
MT – Guitar
Landyn – Bass
Randy – Drums
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Tags: Arizona, Face Pulp, Flagstaff, Hibernaut, Hibernaut Face Pulp Split, Salt Lake City, Utah, What's Left Records
