‘Consejos que son ecos, De su propia frustración, Exterminio del pensamiento, institución estudia, Construye un futuro, emancipación, No quiero creer en su sucio juego’ (Loca) / ‘Advice that echoes, Of your own frustration, Extermination of thought, institution studies, Build a future, emancipation, I don’t want to believe in your dirty game’ (Crazy)

Criminal is the debut release from Tenerife’s Eskolopendra (Centipede) and the trio have honed a richly atmospheric slab of bleakly melodic punk.  The musical palette is tightly constrained as a crisply metronomic rhythm section locks-in with the darkly lean guitar.  This austerity provides the perfect platform for a freewheeling vocal performance, one that sweeps from the stridently urgent to the sardonically detached, from spitting venom to brooding pensively.

It proves an intoxicating partnership, not least on the irrepressibly contagious Actitud (Attitude) and the tensely bristling No Hay Futuro (There Is No Future).  It also matches the fiercely controlled anger that defines the album – a fury at the suffocating everyday chains of social convention (Loca / Crazy) and misogynistic attitudes (Los Chicos / The Boys), and at a society geared towards protecting privilege and entrenched interests at the expense of progress and basic decency (La Ley / The Law).  The coldly seething Odio La Tele (I Hate TV) provides a suitably bracing climax.