‘Our bodies for sales and our brains to rot, On the dole they can buy the fucking lot, They’ll work you to death until you’re obsolete, Upper-class dreams, human machines’ (Take Them By Storm)

Cards on the table – Barren?’s 2021 debut album, Distracted To Death…Diverted From Reality, was undoubtedly my defining album of that year.  So, it’s fair to say that, as I first dropped the needle on this their follow-up, there was a certain excited anticipation.  And while life can frequently disappoint, Barren? most certainly do not – this is an absolute belter.

The Parisian trio, two of whom also play in Turquoise, have honed another deeply contagious slab of anarcho-punk.  The pacing is essentially mid-paced, allowing the band to build a densely layered sound and one that is rich in arresting detail.  Their 1980s’ UK anarcho-punk roots are laced with the soaring melancholy of more contemporary post-punk, while the rhythm section segues from the fiercely propulsive to the more fluidly supple with impressive dexterity.  The agitated vocals are imbued with a striking gothic drama without this ever diluting the combative cadence, and the supporting harmonies and group vocals inject a powerfully anthemic energy.

The passionately articulated lyrical themes span our morally bankrupt economic system, the collective forgetting of colonial legacies, the systemic scapegoating of migrants, the state-sanctioned violence of the police, and the political polarisation fuelled by surveillance capitalism.  There are so many moments to savour from the sombre yet infectious chorus of Men At The Door to the haunting refrain of ‘Amnesia’ that frames Once Upon A Death…, and from the funereal swagger of The Opprobrium to the searing rhythmic tirade of Our Brains Are A Warzone.