Punky post-punk band with high-pitched screams sprinkled throughout. I loved how they manipulated different levels of sound from whispering vocals with cascading guitar to more outright screaming or layered vocals talking all at once; I felt thoroughly immersed throughout this whole album.
I was really drawn to the grittiness of these tracks. The growling, disgruntled vocals really added to the atmosphere of unease that they created. Their cover of “A Forest” by the CURE (titled “Une Foreât” on their demo) caught me off guard in the best way; I didn’t recognize it at first, but I really enjoyed their iteration of it, especially with the intensity of desire that built with the repetition of the word “again.” There were a couple songs where I felt they built the tension super well, but then there wasn’t quite the explosion that I had imagined. Regardless, I loved the grunting and growling and pure emotion in every track.
Release number five from Mascara Rocks, the DIY feminist punk label out of Paris. I imagine GRENAT is also Paris- or at least France-based, but there’s not much info on the band, and as far as I can tell, this is their debut EP. Vague semantics aside, the music is a lovely ’90s pop/grunge/garage/slacker (think BREEDERS) throwback, full of angst, like the opening track “20 Years Old.” Songs are catchy, with vocals more on the sweet than melancholic side. They chug along mid-tempo, pretty straightforward, tossing in quiet bass-and-drums sections followed by loud, whole-band energy—the sluggish, lamenting outro on “Pretty” is also a fun surprise. Need a pick-me-up? GRENAT will do the trick.
HEKÁTĒ out of Athens, Greece recently released their second full-length album, entitled Μαύρη Τρύπα. Dark-tinged instrumentals support vocals that occasionally remind me of KLEENEX/LILIPUT. Synth work drives this album, with the tones ranging from traditional organs to unhinged vintage futurism. However, HEKÁTĒ came to rock, and with tracks like “Tears of Blood” and “Riccochet,” HEKÁTĒ uses a heavy dose of bass in their rhythm section to get the toes tapping. Lyrically, HEKÁTĒ pulls no punches and delivers social criticism through an anarcho-punk lens, with about fifty percent of the lyrics being in English and the rest in Greek. In all, Μαύρη Τρύπα is stacked with punk bangers and contains enough “off-the-beaten-path” experimentation to make it something really special.
