Reviews

Fresh Outbreak

RAN Atrabil​ä​r LP

Fast, crusty hardcore/PV from this Lyon, France band. First off, this record sounds amazing. Recorded and mixed by the band, these fourteen songs sound so nasty, so heavy and distorted, that you’ll immediately know if this is for you. RAN’s sound is so good: syncopated drums that frequently lurch into breathless blastbeats, super heavy bass tones, thick guitars that skew dissonant, and screams. While this is a punk record, there is enough chugging and chaos here to appeal to mathcore and death metal fans, too. Every song rips hard, and I especially like “Why Don’t You Stick Your Head Up Your Ass…See If It Fits” for its ridiculous title, and “Funky Crusty Rambling” for the classic ’50s-style rock’n’roll riff that starts it off. Actually, I recommend you just press play and then repeat it as soon as it ends. Highly recommended.

Put Pùrana / Tromblon split LP

There’s got to be a joke that goes “you can tell how good a screamo release is by how many different labels are putting it out.” Seven different labels coming together to release four tracks by two bands? This split is surely transcendent, no? Well, it is pretty great, to be honest. PÙT PURANA offers three hectic tracks, with often-discordant guitars and great shifts throughout each song, and at their more melodic moments, vaguely reminiscent of BIRDS IN ROW. TROMBLON offers up a different approach on their side of the wax, with one track clocking in at over eight minutes. Opening with a somber, religious feeling of organ sounds and chant-like vocals, the vocals then shed their effects and pick up intensity as the drums build, the guitars rise, fall, and rise again, and the walls of sound they build start to threaten to topple over—and this is all in just the first half of the song. Thankfully, the back half of their singular track is just as rewarding as the first.