Review: Illogistical Resource Dept. – Cacoethes

Style: Alternative Rock, Stoner Rock, Sludge Metal (clean vocals)
Recommended for fans of: Primus, Ænima-era Tool, post-80s Rush
Country: California, United States
Release date: 3 October 2025

San Francisco is responsible for lots of great things: Full House, Rice-A-Roni, that big bridge… But every silver lining has a cloud, as San Fran residents know well. Charles Manson, rampant homelessness, and streets which are not ADA-compliant tarnish the otherwise romantic image of The Paris of The West. Like the Fog City, we all contain within us the capacity for good and evil, ugliness and beauty. I pondered this duality as I pressed play on Frisco-based Illogistical Resource Dept.‘s latest album, Cacoethes, wondering if it would be a San Francisco trick, or a San Francisco treat. (Happy Halloween!)

IRD have been crafting their own brand of Les Claypool-inspired, quasi-instrumental alternative rock for well over a decade now. Since their 2013 debut, Catharsis, the band have been dutifully practicing their hammer-ons, wearing out the lower gears on their metronomes, and sourcing the best spoken word snippets to overlay on their otherwise mostly-instrumental tracks. The band count Rush and Pink Floyd among their chief inspirations, but the Black Sabbath and Alice in Chains influences are much more apparent. Most IRD songs are low-tempo trudges—count yourself lucky if you get more than two notes per measure. The tone of the instruments is much closer to Primus than Sabbath, with clean, popping bass sitting atop mostly unremarkable guitar and drums. Is it still a “power trio” if only one musician is doing anything remotely interesting?

Cacoethes is an unstimulating repetition of IRD‘s modus operandi, as established on their previous two LPs, wherein the songwriting process appears to be: write a mildly interesting riff, and then absolutely bludgeon it to death over three to six minutes. If that’s not enough, tweak the riff just slightly and call it a different song (see: “Hellbender’s Return” vs. “Physaria”). “Parallels”, the fourth track off Cacoethes, has a mildly interesting hammer-on bass riff in the verses, which wouldn’t be out of place on a Primus album. But repeating that riff forty-seven times in three and a quarter minutes becomes so boring as to be frustrating, and then so frustrating as to be enraging. Pile on top of this the band’s seeming disdain for sung vocals, preferring mostly mildly-distorted spoken word from band members or snippets from film and other media, and listening to these tracks intently (only for purposes of an album review, believe me) becomes so torturous, I wouldn’t wish it on the unwilling residents of Guantanamo Bay.

Miraculously, the album is not a barren wasteland entirely devoid of interesting musical ideas. “Tentacles of Fate” is a sludgy, stoner rock track where the band’s Alice in Chains influence is most apparent. The sung vocals on this track are weak, though; they’re not projected enough, hidden back a bit too far in the mix, and obscured with some fuzzy distortion, like the vocalist is embarrassed by their milquetoast performance (do a second take guys, it’s fine). “Togremelas” is also listenable: uptempo, falling sonically somewhere between Ænima-era Tool and Smashing Pumpkins, with a (different?) vocalist who sounds like they actually want to be in the studio. This album is screaming out for some more texture; the synth stabs partway through “99942” are like a breath of fresh air, but then… back to the boring riff mines to mine some boring riffs.

Cacoethes is not an enjoyable listen. The riffs are uninspired and overplayed, the spoken word clips are a gimmick that wears out its welcome many times over, and the timbre of the tracks is so consistent and unsurprising that it becomes wallpaper. Oxford’s English Dictionary defines “cacoethes” as “an irresistible urge to do something inadvisable”. And I swear to god, if you guys make me listen to this album again, I will rip the keys off my keyboard and jam them into my ear canals to purposefully deafen myself so I can’t listen to any more IRD. How’s that for cacoethes?

Recommended tracks: Tentacles of Fate, Togremelas
You may also like: I don’t know I don’t care leave me alone
Final verdict: 2.5/10

Related links: Bandcamp | Facebook | Instagram

Label: Aphagia Recordings

Illogistical Resource Dept. is:
– Dan Oscura (bass, samplers, vocals, additional guitars)
– Mike Tomassi (guitars)
– Noa Oz (drums and percussion)