‘Acepto el fracaso sin asumirme como víctima. Traiciono los deseos que fueron implantados para dirigir mi conducta hacia la perpetuación de un orden atroz.’ (Cataclismo) / ‘I accept failure without seeing myself as a victim. I defy the desires that were instilled in me to steer my behaviour towards the perpetuation of an atrocious order.’ (Cataclysms)

This is a reissue of the split album first released in 2022 by Habak and Fractal, bands who both hail from Tijuana and share drummers.  On side one, we are in the hands of Habak.

Habak’s debut, Insania, was rooted in darkly melodic crust.  However, their 2020 follow-up, Ningún Muro Consiguió Jamás Contener La Primavera (No Wall Has Ever Gotten To Contain The Spring), saw the band fuse this core with a rich seam of hauntingly evocative post-metal, which remains a powerful component on this split.  A further texture is introduced by way of passages of almost pastoral acoustic guitar, which foreshadow the band’s exploration of dark folk influences on their most recent full-length, 2025’s Mil Orquídeas En Medio Del Desierto (A Thousand Orchids In The Middle Of The Desert).

As ever, the key to each of the three tracks lies in the band’s harnessing of the delicate and the discordant in a fiercely tensile harmony.  The defiantly roared vocals explore how to live a fulfilling life within the strictures of a hegemonic ideology that places no value on being able to do so.  Cataclismo is my personal highlight.

The flip side sees Fractal take over the reins with a single, fifteen-minute instrumental track.  In essence, they take the post-metal influence that simmers within Habak and place them front and centre.  Soaring melodies are given space to fully unfurl and intertwined with mournful cello as the track ebbs and flows, sweeping from eruptions of metallic heft to passages of meditative introspection.