Cincinnati’s The Drin return with their fourth full-length, Elude The Torch, and continue to hone their uniquely evocative dub fuelled post punk as they fiercely forge a myriad of influences from bluegrass to dark folk into a vibrantly cohesive soundscape.

I had the good fortune of catching The Drin when they played London back in April.  Now, as much as I’ve loved their three preceding LPs for their dense yet catchy complexity, for some reason I couldn’t quite frame what to expect in the live setting.  But as the hypnotically propulsive rhythm section and raucous saxophone kicked in, I knew it was going to be something pretty special – perhaps, more immediate, even more instinctual.  And the band’s craft in gradually ratcheting up the intensity through the set to a point verging on the euphoric was impressively relentless. Music to lose yourself in and, to be honest, we can all do with some of that at the moment.  Even the tambourines worked.  Yeah, it was that good.

And Elude The Torch perfectly captures the qualities that defined The Drin’s live incarnation. It is a vivid exploration of how to layer sound, rooted in intricate instrumentation and a lust to experiment, without ever bowing to the false lure of self-indulgence.  The bedrock is the driving rhythm section that both grounds the band’s more esoteric elements, while also ensuring a remorseless, mesmerising propulsion.  The languid, drawled, largely spoken word vocals act as a starkly contrasting yet equally consistent counterpoint as they conjure a cryptically allusive, poetically introspective narrative.

With these two elements locked in, the band’s instrumental palette is given full rein – the guitars swing from trippy wah-wah to hauntingly atmospheric bluegrass, while flares of raucous mouth organ, squalls of discordant saxophone, darkly resonant strings, and eerily skeletal piano all feed into a darkly foreboding, irresistibly immersive atmosphere.  And while the song writing is undeniably tight, the album brims with a writhing improvisational energy, as it segues seamlessly from spectral dissonance to passages that are almost transcendentally infectious.  So go on, elude the torch, embrace The Drin – it’s quite the journey.

‘Ricordati questa passione, Redefinire cos’é il valore, una vita che brucia enternamente, insieme c’é sempra potere’ (Insieme C’é Potere) ‘Remember this passion, Redefine value, A life that burns eternally, Together there’s always strength’ (Together There is Strength)

Following their blistering debut EP, Immagini Postume (Posthumous Image), New Yorks’s Mirage return on rampant form with their first full-length, Legato Alla Rovina (Bound To Ruin).  From the moment the rumbling bass unfurls beneath the squalling feedback and then coalesces into the bleakly crystalline melody that defines opener Nuclear Plague, it is clear that Mirage will continue to unleash their distinctively burly yet nuanced reimagining of off-kilter 1980s’ Italian hardcore.

The frantic, surging delivery is shrouded throughout with an invigorating, discordant dark punk melodicism, while largely Italian vocals range from the stridently raw to the ominously spoken word.  Lyrically, the album evokes an apocalyptic future driven by society’s boundless greed and distorted priorities without ever losing hope that our collective spirit can yet offer redemption.  Personal stand-out moments include the visceral velocity of Insieme C’é Potere (Together There Is Strength), the soaring brilliance of Il Giorno Dell’Amore E Violenza (The Day Of Love And Violence), and the stomping savagery of Uomo Settico (Septic Man).

‘Perfectly curated illusion of freedom, obey the machine, worship the system, an answer to enforce every belief, abstraction to mask all of our grief’ (Silent Morality)

Having honed their bruising sound on two EPs, 2018’s Use Abuse Destroy and 2020’s Delirious Void, Perth’s No Future take their full-length bow with venomous aplomb on Mirror.  The thunderous d-beat fuelled, cymbal awash drums and bone shudderingly resonant bass lines inject a swaggering malevolence to proceedings, underpinning the waves of cacophonous, noise-infused riffage.  This is a groove fired recipe that comes together with particular brutality on Silent Morality, P.B.S., and Vampiric Ego Fucker.

But it is, perhaps, the vocals that demand centre stage.  Whereas we might expect a guttural roar, we are treated to powerfully rasping, reverb accented, rather than saturated, vocals that drip with undisguised contempt for those in power and the entrenched privileges they protect.  Silent Morality examines our own complicity in the capitalist system, Pig Fiend those who pay lip service to notions of equality with no thought to the damage wreaked by their knowing exploitation (‘Corrupted, crooked smile, pathetic smirk of power’), and Progress? the warped rationalities that infect us all (‘Beliefs that endlessly echo, a mental vice that can’t let go’).  It may well be a desolate message, but it is one delivered with compelling conviction.

Oslo’s Assistert Sj​ø​lmord make their vinyl debut with a blistering seven track EP which reanimates its 1980s’ inspirations with an utterly feral vitality.

Featuring members of Draümar and Indre Krig, Assistert Sj​ø​lmord (Assisted Suicide) fuses a base of breathless 1980s’ Norwegian hardcore with the catchy hooks of SoCal punk and the pounding rhythms of UK82 to furious effect as harshly clean guitars are intertwined with absolutely rabid Norwegian vocals.  From the opening eruption of Klimabombe (Climate Bomb), the intensity never drops for even a second, peaking, perhaps, with Toxicity, with its wailing guitar opening, and rampaging closer La Oss Dø (Let Us Die).

Rome’s Trans Upper Egypt return with No Dub, their third album of bass driven, motorik beat fuelled jazz-punk.

The tightly compact formula for No Dub is executed with an unerring yet vibrant consistency.  Deeply resonant, infectiously repetitive dub influenced bass lines in a lock-step partnership with fluidly supple, crisply punchy drumming form the foundation.  Waves of dissonant, acid-tinged organs and flourishes of haunting brass weave their own often distinct psychedelic paths, while the spectral vocals are in part spoken word, in part chanted mantra, blurred and disembodied.

But let’s return to that rhythm section, which is utterly hypnotic.  To reduce it to metronomic feels reductive bearing in mind its fierce dexterity.  It is undoubtedly precise yet also richly detailed and textured.  There is a sense of all enveloping possession – even if you wanted to escape, you wouldn’t be able to break the trance, your body jerking in syncopated unison, gripped by the inexorable rhythms.

In many respects, the album is best understood as a single movement defined by subtle variations on a single unifying, mesmerising theme.  Quite simply, from the opening one-two of 33 and Benghe (Good Luck), it does not let go even for a second, not least on the brilliantly expansive Itali (Italians).  And the artwork finishes things off perfectly – after all, who doesn’t love a young caiman crocodile?

‘No one cares what came before, They stripped it of its very core, Now people they can’t tell what the hell they moved here for’ (Ain’t What It Used To Be)

Peace de Résistance is the solo project of Institute’s Moses Brown and Lullaby For The Debris, his second album, following on from 2022’s debut, Bits And Pieces.  The fundamentals that made Bits And Pieces such a memorable record remain firmly in place.  The starting point is Brown’s love of Zamrock (a 1970s’ fusion of traditional Zambian polyrhythms with more contemporary heavy rock instrumentation), which he has then reconnected with swaggering glam rock and reimagined through his own DIY punk sensibility.

But at the same time, progression is equally clear.  The overriding aesthetic is, perhaps, more refined, less determinedly lo-fi.  The songs energetically crafted, quietly infectious.  From the shimmering riff that defines opener You Are Absurd to the noir-tinged The Funny Man, from the wildly skittering piano flourish that kicks off the rollicking Fast Money, to the plaintive brass of the title track, this is an album rich in detail and texture.

Brown’s vocal delivery remains a languorous drawl that belies an anger robustly rooted in exploring class consciousness through the modern nexus of low pay, urban dispossession of the working class, and the wider rentier economy.  The strutting 40 Times The Rent examines housing insecurity (‘The ground’s unstable, when homes aren’t purchasable’) and Ain’t What It Used To Be how our cities are frequently hollowed out at the behest of real estate capital, while Pay Us More bluntly decries the exploitation at the heart of the economic system (‘It’s time that working full time made you a living’).

And, throughout, the album is bleakly cognisant of just how embedded the status quo remains.  Coddle The Rich recognises our own complicity (‘The compromises that you’ve made for pay checks and the duplex that you pay for’) and Fast Money a system geared to protecting privileged interests (‘You took the handout and where does it go? Bonuses, not me and Joe’).  The title track delivers a ruminative finale that fears that change will never come (‘Left in the wake of recklessness and greed, She said, “It’s fine monsieur, why change anything?”’).

Porta d’Oro’s (Golden Door) buoyantly ethereal debut album, Cosí Dentro Come Fuori (Both Inside And Outside), is the solo project of Giacomo Stefanini and sees him hone a myriad of influences into a thoroughly hypnotic and deeply meditative journey.

Based in Milan, Stefanini has been a mainstay of a range of Italian DIY punk projects over the past decade, including Mirrorism, Kobra, and, most recently, Festa Del Perdono.  The latter is, perhaps, the most relevant reference point as Porta d’Oro shares a similar lo-fi inventiveness and poetically inclined aesthetic.  A woozily dub infused rhythm section is overlain with fuzzy synths and flares of taut post-punk guitar, augmented by flourishes of brass.  The lyrical themes are fragmented and impressionistic, with a largely spoken word delivery, sometimes, in solemn solitude and, at others, tantalisingly layered.

The opening track Conta I Passi La Lepre (The Hare Counts The Steps) with its languid blend of strummed guitar and tinkling piano lures you into the album’s embrace, which can at times feel almost ephemeral.  Yet whenever it threatens to dissolve, it reasserts its grip with surprising vigour, such as on the unexpectedly strident Bleah! and the entrancing slow-build of Un Sasso Nero (A Black Stone).

As Side Two opens, both the title track and Lá (There) are built around eerily minimalist, impossible to shake melodies.  The darkly swirling Notte E Giorno (Night And Day), with its chanted mantra climax, then follows before all of the intertwined elements that have preceded converge on the prophetically titled and incrementally dissembling closer Tutto Crolla (Everything Collapses).  Intriguingly, the album’s mood is one that seems to somehow shift to reflect your own, being quietly hopeful while simultaneously rooted in a melancholic pragmatism.

Torino’s SabaSaba return with Unknown City, a bleakly evocative invocation of a future defined by social segregation, the othering of the marginalised, and the siren call of authoritarianism.

Whereas the band’s 2018 self-titled debut drew on the works of JG Ballard and William Gibson, Unknown City is a sonic interpretation of China Miéville’s 2009 novel, The City And The City.  The story is set in a post-Soviet Balkans state, which sees two cities, Bezel and Ul Quoma, occupy the same place while being seen as entirely separate by their respective citizens.  This is not a physical border, but rather one born of perception and custom.

Inhabitants are effectively trained to ignore one another, to knowingly ‘unsee’.  The band’s homage lends new force to the novel’s central themes of how people are conditioned to ignore that which does not directly impact us and to dissociate for harm being done in our name, which frequently makes us complicit in the socio-economic inequalities that define our society.

The duo skilfully conjures a remorselessly suffocating landscape as they lead us into this dystopian realm, a tale of both refusing to see and of being unseen.  The album slowly uncoils, relentlessly building impetus before once again folding in on itself, a constant process of assembly and disassembly on a hazy, uncertain journey.  Hauntingly monochrome synthesisers and programmed drums form the bedrock, over which eerily disembodied voices, spectral chants, and scratchy analogue instrumentation flare.  Central to the darkly disorientating atmosphere that evolves is the mournful yet strident viola of Ambra Chiara Michelangeli that is deftly woven through the album.

Stand out moments include the viola propelled Desert Cathedral, the infectiously discordant Night Plotters, and the utterly entrancing Wrists Free, featuring industrial techno duo Jerome.  As the album reveals itself, you can’t help but envisage yourself in the smog-filled, intensely surveilled streets of a city inherently at unease with itself, unwilling to look itself in the eye, burdened as much by its history as by its ambiguous future.

‘Up here in my tower, I can see the west through the haze, The kids across the street are learning, I’m trying not to rust’ (Ants)

What would being trapped in a negative gear feel like?  Anyone who had the misfortune of listening to what passed for economic debate in the recent UK General Election might be able to hazard a guess – the grinding, churning failed consensus of ‘fiscal discipline’ and trickle-down economics being blindly dredged once again, leaving communities relentlessly battered and civic infrastructure fundamentally decayed.  Imagine harnessing the fury that this vacuous debate induced and using it to forge bleakly discordant, but ineffably catchy post-punk.  There you go, welcome to Moraliser.

Hailing from Sydney, Negative Gears made their debut with an excellent self-titled 12-inch in 2019, although the sketched cover art of a man diving headfirst on to a razor blade still stalks my subconscious.  The five-year interlude has been used very wisely indeed.  A propulsively resonant rhythm section, blessed with some wonderfully pulsating bass lines, sets the fluid tone through which the taut, melancholically dissonant melodies are woven, alongside electronic flare-ups and skeletal piano.  Meanwhile, the vocals are austerely detached, a detachment not born of apathy, but rather a palpable, bristling contempt for the priorities of our late-stage capitalist society.

Choppy opener, Negative Gear (‘The puritan idea, Of virtue through suffering, Justifying my self-harm, Is ironically lost on me’) kicks things off perfectly, prior to the band delivering an absolute killer one-two.  The utterly infectious Ants, with its haunting mantra of ‘I’m alone in paradise’, explores our increasingly segregated cities, and then the blisteringly acerbic semi-spoken word of Attention To Detail (‘Lost in the belief, Belief you deserve it, I wonder if you’ll even figure out if it was worth it’), which you have no choice but to chant along with in doomed unison, dissects how we’ve all become lost in the warped rationality of these increasingly dystopian times.

And the impetus doesn’t dim on the flipside.  The band continue to explore themes of social alienation and isolation on the darkly off-kilter Pills and hypnotic Connect, before the swirling frustrations and dashed hopes of Ain’t Seen Nothing Yet brings the album to a furious finale that is as lyrically desolate as it is musically uplifting.

‘Can’t shake the feeling that you would rather me be dead, Waste of space, waste of time, waste of love, I am nothing, Trust the process, I am dying, I will starve until I die’ (Trust The Process)

Melbourne’s Diploid return with a new blistering five-track EP, Mantra, and follow-up to 2021’s coruscating full-length, I Am Yours. And I am Here Again.  Their fierce blend of grindcore and chaotic hardcore continues to be refined as it is woven through with slabs of muscular death metal-tinged riffs, flourishes of discordant melody, and bruising blast beat fuelled eruptions.

Meanwhile, guttural roared and harrowingly harsh vocals intertwine and interchange to devastating effect.  Lyrically, bleakly allusive imagery of self-doubt, body image, starvation, and coping strategies tell both a deeply personal story, while simultaneously evoking the devastating social inequality and environmental exploitation being wreaked in the name of progress.

As ever, the band’s delivery is elevated by two defining characteristics.  Firstly, an unbridled velocity that few can match and that simply leaves you reeling.  And, secondly, their skilled grasp of the dynamics of song building that ensure that each track retains a keen sense of its own identity amid the unrelenting onslaught.

The savage opening title track sets the tone perfectly before feeding into the brutal riffage of Denial Defensive.  The intensity is unyielding across the more melodic fury of Me And My Numbers and the monolithic Practice Of Perishing, before the utterly compelling Trust The Progress sees a swaggering opening salvo dissolve into an agonised, squalling climax.  An absolute sledgehammer of an EP, sonic violence applied with punishing precision and inventive dexterity.

‘Distruggo le fondamenta di un destino che non ho scelto, Il presagio di un eterno ritorno, Noi non siamo eco, L’anima ormai in framenti può spezzare il meccanismo?’ (Oltre) ‘I destroy the foundation of a destiny I didn’t choose, The omen of an eternal recurrence, We’re not just echoes, Can a soul now in pieces break the system?’ (Beyond)

Milan’s Lucta are back with their debut album, Eterna Lotta (Eternal Struggle), a follow-up to 2018’s demo, Black Magic Punks.  The band forge an unholy alliance between dark punk and 1980s’ Italian hardcore.  This sees the band unleash a rabidly lean onslaught that segues seamlessly from blistering riffage to eruptions of stomping mid-paced power, laced throughout with flourishes of fuzzed out, mystically-tinged melodicism.

The centrepiece though is the Italian vocals – strident, semi-shouted, with just a dash of melody, they are delivered with truly venomous intent.  Lyrically, the album explores themes of rage with current social injustices, while simultaneously grappling with a sense of helplessness and a defiant recognition that this is a particular battle that will never end.  Stand out moments include the slab-like ferocity of Il Peso Di Ieri (The Weight Of Yesterday), the rhythmic, staccato fury of Oltre (Beyond), and the cathartically charged closing title track.

From the moment the haunting intro to the opening track, Cujo, begins to unfurl, you suspect that we are in for something of a treat.  And London’s Hellscape do not disappoint on this their darkly enticing self-titled debut 7-inch.

Rasping, desperately urgent vocals brook no debate as they lure you into the band’s maelstrom of clean yet burly hardcore riffage draped in melancholy fuelled death rock melodies.  The EP is riven with a spiky sepulchral energy and deploys the power of repetition to compelling effect.  The opening track concludes on the haunting cry of ‘Hang me from the balcony’, while the repeated mantra of ‘I know it’s wrong’ defines the galloping Intravenous, and surging first side closer Dybbuk, a malicious possessing spirit in Hebrew mythology, poses the pressing question of ‘What do you know of revenge?’.

Side Two opens with the intense eruption of Traitor’s Gate before the fiercely layered vocals of the more expansive Samson.  And then, a further unexpected twist, as the EP closes out with the groove-laden, grunge-fuelled The Grave, with its spectral tale of watery tombs.

‘Everyone needs a place to go, capsized lives sink to depths unknown, drones circle above while flesh and homes turn to ashes below, the watchers’ eyes remain stoic and cold’ (Late Stage Harm Reduction)

During the bloom of melodic hardcore that defined much of the US scene in the noughties, there was perhaps one band above all who defined this period for me – Rhode Island’s Verse.  Releasing four albums across Rivalry and Bridge Nine, of which perhaps 2006’s From Anger And Rage was the definitive release, they captured all of the key elements that defined that particular era – a re-engagement with the musical and political roots of US hardcore, while still calling upon more contemporary metallic influences.

And as Love Letter’s debut album, Everyone Wants Something Beautiful, unfurls you can’t but help draw comparisons with Verse.  This is not simply due to their powerfully distinctive shared vocalist, Quinn Murphy, but the arrangement of the songs itself.  Hardcore can be forged in many different ways, from distorted low-end driven to providing a tableau for a guitar onslaught.  But Love Letter, as with Verse, craft their songs with the clear intent of pushing the vocals to absolute front and centre.  And this is a weight that Murphy has always proved very adept at carrying.  We live in an age of manufactured, synthetic outrage, which is used to distort, rather than inform, debate.  Yet Murphy serves as the antidote to this – their fiercely rhythmic vocals burn with a palpable, heartfelt sincerity and seethe with an unvarnished rage at the inequities that define our society.

But this is no one person show.  The balance of the band comprises former members of Defeater and Death Of A Nation (including Jay Maas on guitar), and they unleash a furious yet nuanced onslaught.  The cleaner than, perhaps, expected guitars unfurl with a gleaming fluidity, while slab-like eruptions of metallic fury are entwined with bleakly dark melodies and passages of reflective, at times almost post-metal tinged, introspection.  A fluently supple rhythm section expertly harnesses these oscillating dynamics and forms a lock-step partnership with Murphy’s vocals, while inventively layered backing vocals and occasional flares of electronic dissonance add further texture.  Stand-out moments are myriad from the cathartically surging Wellness Checks And Dear Friends to the haunting spoken word of Settlements, from the searing Meds And Taxes to the swirling, bristling Late Stage Harm Reduction.

The causes and manifestations of social and economic inequality form the album’s coruscating lyrical core as does a cry for us to recognise the human needs that we all share.  Misanthropic Holiday Or Vacation examines the devastating role of ‘Big Pharma’ in US society (‘Tailored pharmaceutical fits to suit you, until the side effects rip you apart at the seams’), before Popular Memes delves into the twisted logic of the alt-right (‘You conquer and divide to expand the grift – sleep well’), and Unhousing Projects explores the human costs and slow violence of homelessness and the relentless financialisation of housing (‘Eviction sealed fates – a new section-eight waitlist dates lock your mind in a prison’).  Meds And Taxes (‘Can’t pull yourself up by bootstraps you’re under heel’) and Late Stage Harm Reduction (‘We work for less in the name of faux progress – we’ve normalised apathy and callousness’) focus on the relentless exploitation of our economic system, while Settlements (‘An impossible world to love’) details the horrors of illegal land grabs in Palestine and the dehumanising day-to-day realities of a segregated society, which have, of course, subsequently taken an even more horrific turn. Something beautiful certainly, but equally something deeply sobering.

‘Hoy vivo reprimido confinado al olvido, Condicionado para vivir enjaulado, El pasado me asecha producto de falsos pasos, no soy dueños de mi destino’ (Enjaulados – Rostros Borrossos) ‘Today I live repressed, Confined to oblivion, Conditioned to live in a cage, The past haunts me as a result of false steps, I am not the master of my destiny’ (Caged – Blurred Faces)

I first encountered Tijuana’s Habak in 2020 through their excellent second album, Ningún Muro Consiguió Jamás Contener La Primavera (No Wall Ever Contained Spring), which is soon to be repressed by Alerta Antifascista Records.  Subsequent split releases, including last year’s blistering partnership with Lagrimas, have seen the band continue to relentlessly hone their melodic crust fuelled hardcore.  So, I was rather excited to see that Persistent Vision were reissuing the band’s remastered 2015 debut full-length, which had eluded me to this point, on vinyl for the first time.

And Insania does not disappoint, hitting home with a stark, fierce clarity in its own right, while also intimating the direction of the band’s later evolution.  All the hallmarks of Habak’s trademark sound are in place.  Impassioned, roared Spanish vocals, sometimes layered, occasionally call-and-response, intertwine with soaring, darkly melodic riffage and a powerfully limber rhythm section.  Shimmering passages of clean guitar and flourishes of melancholic strings are deployed to powerful effect and clearly hint towards the hauntingly evocative post-metal influences that the band have subsequently embraced.

Crushing opener Immune Al Dolor (Immune To Pain) sets the tone perfectly and highlights follow thick and fast – from the spectral spoken word climax of Orbe De Almas (Orb Of Souls), to the raucous fury of Enjaulados – Rostros Borrossos, from the soaring yet sombre beauty of Condenado Al Olvido (Condemned To Oblivion) to the bleakly euphoric title track.  Lyrical themes are, perhaps, more directly personal exploring as they do a sense of time passing and the vagaries of memory, feelings of loneliness and alienation.  This reissue includes a previously unreleased live studio version of Orbe De Almas.

‘They want to be god, To let them is our sin, Our freedom is theirs, We’re strung up like a puppet, Hanging by a thread’ (Abattoir)

Subdued made quite the bang when they first arrived with a fine EP and 2020’s cracking Over The Hills And Far Away full-length.  Yet, four years is a long time in our contemporary era of shortened attention spans and fickle fashions.  However, as anyone who has had the good fortune of catching Subdued over the past year knows, this time has been put to very good use indeed. An even darker, leaner, angrier band has emerged from the shadows.

And the high expectations primed by these live performances are fully justified on this, their second album, Abbatoir.  The band’s sound remains rooted in the traditions of anarcho-punk, but vividly reimagined, indeed remorselessly hardened, and imbued with a menacing intensity to reflect our times.  Rasping, sneering, semi-shouted vocals carry a distinctly London cadence as they are intertwined in lockstep with powerfully fluid, almost tribal, rhythm section.

This creates the perfect complement for an utterly inspired guitar attack as it seamlessly segues from the muscular and metallic to the densely complex and breathlessly fast.  Seething, discordant melodies shroud and envelop each tightly crafted track and ensure that the bleakly ominous atmosphere never relents even for a moment.  Each listen reveals new layers, new flourishes of intrigue – whether the infectious dissonance of Vulturemen, the writhingly serpentine Children Of God, or the venomous Abattoir itself.

The imagery of the abattoir provides a consistent motif throughout the album – quite literally on the bruising opener, Machine Hell, as it tackles the horrors of the meat industry (‘They are cold and alone, waiting for the killing blow’), and then more allusively as tracks such as Vulturemen (‘They strip the world and sell its skin’), Finish (Where’s true peace? Where’s true worth? Poisoned everything’), and the title track explore our exploitative economic system.

Meanwhile, Who Dies If England Lives? grapples with the legacies of empire (‘Justice died a million times’) and Children Of God the violence fuelled in the name of religion (‘Is it worth making hell for an unknown heaven?’).  The album climaxes on the raw cry ‘We deserve anarchy now’, when instead all we are promised is the protection of the very status quo that got us into this mess in the first place.

‘Siamo stati morti per troppo o troppo poco tempo, guardate questa follia, questa farsa colorata, preferirei che andassimo per la nostra diversa strada, piuttosto che giocare al gioco che ci lega’ (Pomeriggio Dorato) ‘We have been dead for too much or too little time, look at this madness, this colourful farce, I’d rather we go our different ways, rather than playing the game that binds us’ (Golden Afternoon)

Festa Del Perdono (Feast Of Forgiveness) comprise three parts of Italian hardcore punks Kobra, whose members have also featured in a myriad of other projects including Mirrorism, Ceremonia Secreta, and Spirito Di Lupo (SDL).  And it is perhaps this last reference point that is the most pertinent as Festa Del Perdono share both SDL’s anarcho punk leanings and impressionistic lyrical leanings, but take them in a notably less abrasive, even more determinedly otherworldly, dark wave infused direction.

Each of the EP’s four tracks are skilfully arranged around the fulcrum of the hypnotic, rhythmically infectious Italian spoken word vocals.  Sharp guitars and mechanically propulsive percussion form a similarly consistent component and are then blended throughout with varying fusions of flaring organs, soaring brass flourishes, and ‘woah’ backing vocals, perhaps, to most notable success on the urgently gripping Corpo Di Smeraldo (Emerald Body).

And then, just as you feel you are getting a handle on the band’s trajectory, they unleash the mesmerising, dub fuelled closer, Pomeriggio Dorato (Golden Afternoon).  The EP’s mystically evocative lyrics call upon natural world imagery of sea, fire, and stars to create an atmosphere that is on the one hand almost hazily dream-like, yet on the other, still rooted with firm clarity in the concerns of the actually existing.  A vibrant, unexpected gem.

‘Kuasa pemusnah hati, mati dalam kotak delusi sendiri, tutup mata, tutup telinga dandiam membodoh dalam diri sendiri!’ (Kuasa) ‘The power of heartbreak, dead in the box of self-delusion, close your eyes, close your ears, and keep fooling yourself!’ (Power)

Instrumental opener, Kebangkitan (Resurrection) is electrified by the entrancing howl of Malay string instruments that first intertwine with squalling guitar and then a pounding, percussive rhythm before finally erupting into raw hardcore fury.  So, Berlin-based Sihir (Magic) take their bow on Ular Akan Patuk (Snakes Will Strike) and what a fiercely uncompromising one it proves to be.

A crashing, punishing rhythm section underpins brutish, noise-infused riffage, leavened by occasional flares of bleak melody and a further haunting string instrumental, Pencarian (Quest).  Meanwhile, snarled Bahasu Malay vocals tackle themes of abortion rights (Pengguguran Percuma / Free Abortion), misogyny (Anli Sihir / Witches), and the entrenched mistreatment of migrants (Tak Masuk Akal / Nonsense) with a stark directness.  The album’s stunningly vivid artwork is courtesy of Javanese artist, Enka Komariah, and weaves a tale of tigers, death, and sorcery.