Hardcore renegades MOST PRECIOUS BLOOD make their return with a controversial release, embodied in the ferocious but brief Our Lady of Annihilation. If nothing else, the New York City-based outfit are bound to get attention, negative or otherwise, for their daring cover art depiction, as the actual music here lacks structure and a feel of completion. Most of the songs, primarily “Quiet Pattern” and “Collusionist,” clock in at just under two minutes - brief even for the genre. This all makes for an unsatisfyingly short, albeit sonically brutal, 22-minute album. MOST PRECIOUS BLOOD is obviously influenced by their NYC peers such as SICK OF IT ALL and AGNOSTIC FRONT, only with a motif more reliant on breakdowns than on sing-along passages. The lyrics contain at times bleak and negative imagery of drug addiction, societal problems and living in a post-9/11 America; the latter found somewhat cryptically on “So Typical My Heart.” The band shows promise with in-your-face songwriting on “The Great Red Shift,” but too often repeats the same chorus in other tracks that could’ve been expanded into stronger territory. All in all, MOST PRECIOUS BLOOD’s newest will attract fans of straight-up NYC hardcore, as the music drives relentlessly with eardrum-pounding heaviness and brutal breakdowns, but falls far short of becoming anything special. (Trustkill)