‘Movements cooped, Designed to go flat, Our dreams exploited, Hope turns to a trap, Sustain a movement, Against all odds, Can’t make it last, No matter what the cost’ (Mara Baad Mara مرة باد مرة / Time After Time)

Ehteram إحترام (Respect) is the debut 7-inch from New York’s Pure Terror.  Drawn from the city’s pan-Arab diaspora, the band call on the poetry of June Jordan, Nizar Quabbani, and Samih al-Qasim.  In the accompanying booklet, their poems sit alongside the band’s lyrics and their themes of cultural identity and anti-colonialism frame the band’s own searing exploration of both the horror unfolding in Gaza and the lived experience of Arab émigrés to the US, as well as, more broadly, the challenges of sustaining political activism in our ever more atomised society.

These concerns fuel an utterly visceral onslaught that melds stripped back, metallic tinged hardcore with pacing dynamics and semi-shouted vocals that draw more on anarcho-punk inspirations.  Side One kicks off with the seething Accused Of Terror with its fierce spoken word climax and the absolute martial fury of Mara Baad Mara مرة باد مرة, before the groove laden No Compromise and the furious Majnoon مجنون (Insane) bring proceedings to a crushing climax on the flip side.