‘They employ symbols of hate and debunked conspiracies, All to concoct a poisonous doctrine, Reactionary in social mores, neoliberal in the economy, Bible in hand, embracing greed and bigotry’ (A Song Of Incubating Despotism)

Point Of No Return are a hardcore band from Sao Paolo.  Initially active between 1996 and 2006, they released a self-titled EP in 1998 and two full-lengths, 2000’s Centelha (Spark) and 2002’s Imposed Freedom…Conquered Freedom.  The band reunited last year, and the result is their latest album, The Language Of Refusal.

The core tenets of the band’s sound remain firmly in place.  Darkly metallic riffage laced with flares of ominous melody, and underpinned by a powerfully precise rhythm section.  The band’s three vocalists unleash a densely layered rhythmic barrage.  They alternate between English and Portuguese, and between urgently impassioned vocals rooted in hardcore and interventions that call on more death metal orientated influences.  Solemn spoken word passages readily bring Trial’s Greg Bennick to mind, adding further texture to the tightly honed battery, perhaps, best captured by the savagely spiralling Guile and the bruising Corroding Cartopia.

And just as the sonic onslaught has lost none of its potency, nor has the band’s uncompromising dissection of our political malaise.  The album teases out a tightly drawn map of causation to highlight the ravaging impact of late-stage capitalism.  A Fronteria (The Frontier), De Segunda Classe Para O Abiano (A Second-Class Ticket To The Abyss), and Árbitrária Discriminação (Arbitrary Discrimination) explore the consequences of varying forms of environmental extraction and abuse, while Informal Arcaico (Informal Backwardness) and Corroded Cartopia examine how the same warped economic logic drives worker exploitation and distorts the fabric of our cities in favour of the privileged.  How this relentless disenfranchisement fuels the rise of right-wing authoritarianism is then tackled on Guile and A Song Of Incubating Despotism.