‘Te levantas y vas al baño y miras tu rostro, Y sabes que ese rostro no es el tuyo, Sabas que la que esta frente a tí no erec túm, Es un cuerpo extraño’ (Cenizas En El Rostro) / ‘You get up to go to the bathroom, You look at your face in the mirror, And you know that the person in front of of you, Isn’t you, It’s a foreign body’ (Ashes On The Face)

The debut album from London’s Traidora, Una Mujer Trans Sin País (Trans Woman Without A Country) is as raw as it comes, both sonically and thematically.  The rabid rhythms of Latin American punk are melded with searing metallic crust, amid flares of death metal inspired riffage, and harshly blackened Spanish vocals.  It is a truly unforgiving battery that reaches its zenith on the brutally uncompromising Disforia Eterna (Eternal Dysphoria) and the anarcho-punk infused Cenizas En El Rostro and Dónde Estás? (Where Are You?).

While Traidora has evolved into a four piece for this release, it initially began as the solo project of vocalist, Eva Leblanc, a Venezuelan trans woman, who released her debut 7-inch Un Cuerpo Trans Lleno de Odio (A Trans Body Full Of Hate) in 2023.  The lyrics remain deeply personal, a stark and, at times, harrowing exploration of the dysphoria that has shaped her life and the systematic prejudice that has confronted her as a trans woman and emigrant, as well as the wider struggles of the Mapuche and Palestinian peoples.

The album serves as a salutary reminder of the need for hardcore to continue to evolve and enable new perspectives and lived experiences to be explored.  Of how even now seminal bands, such as say Los Crudos, have had to wrestle for initial acceptance, initially being deemed by some to be overly confrontational.  Una Mujer Trans Sin País is Traidora’s powerful call for the right to be heard.