‘Sentir los latidos, marcaste la senda. Olor a mojado después de la tormenta. El chándal de tactel, rodillas magulladas. Grabando las cintas de Eskorbuto y Barricada’ (Recuerdos) ‘Feeling the heartbeat, you marked the path, Smell of wetness after the storm. The tactel tracksuit, bruised knees, Recording the Eskorbuto and Barricada tapes’ (Memories)

Hailing from Zaragoza, Venganza have been active since 2012 and Damnatio Memoriae (Condemnation Of Memory) is their second full-length and follow-up to the 2021 EP, La Fiera (The Beast).  Bristling hardcore is fused with a street punk rawness and riven through with a deep-seated, fuzzed yet sinuous melodicism.  This potent blend comes together with particular ferocity on the stirring Recuerdos and the searing Herederx De La Empresa (Heir To The Company).

The album’s title draws on the Roman practise of erasing from the public record anyone who was seen to have been an enemy of the people.  The concept has since come to be understood as a wider, systematic erasure of memory by the state of those that oppose it, sanctions that seek to obscure and distort history.  The artwork speaks to resisting this process with imagery drawn from their city’s history – anarchist activists, industrial conflicts, and notorious civil war prisons.

Lyrically, bar the state sanctioned violence of El Hedor Es Tu Divisa (The Stench Is Your Currency), the focus of the snarled Spanish vocals is on more contemporary social conflicts.  Vida-Trabajo (Life-Work) and Herederx De La Empresa explore how we succumb to the pressures of consumerism, while Facta Non Verba (Deeds Not Words) and Anarcomodernxs take aim at empty gesture politics.  The album closes with a rousing cover of Hasta El Fin (Until The End) by 1980s’ Basque punks, R.I.P.