‘Bienvenida inversión extranjera…Primer mundo, Nos tienen en guerra…¡Robando! Burlándose de las costumbres, Para después venderlas’ (Nuevo Mexico) / ‘Welcome foreign investment…First world, They have us at war…Stealing! Mocking our customs, Only to sell them off later’ (New Mexico)

What is the characteristic that elevates the most compelling hardcore?  For me, it is the intentionality that shapes both why and how it is being played.  Mexico City’s Annapura are a band who literally seethe with it and the band’s fifth release, V (they are, however, not big on titles), is a visceral statement of that intent.

The origins of the band are very much rooted in d-beat fuelled crust, but as they have progressed, another element has come increasingly into play.  It is one that brings to mind mid-2000s’ bands in the vein of say Black Kites and The Separation, who married together influences drawn from the metallic hardcore of the early 1990s with the more chaotic, faster expressions that emerged later in that same decade.  It proves a thoroughly rewarding evolution.

From the desperation drenched opener No Llegó (He Didn’t Arrive) to the bleak melody laced Todo A Todo (Everything To Everything), and then through the bouncing grooves of Espíritu de Fuego (Spirit Of Fire) to the double bass drum propelled tumult of El Desastre (The Disaster), the intensity is remorseless.  Each track is a savage two-minute eruption, before the album closes on the more expansive, darkly atmospheric instrumental Ocaso (Sunset).  Meanwhile, the dual vocals, one gruffly barked, the other more harshly desperate, explore how the colonial economics of globalisation exploit and exacerbate the violence and inequality embedded in daily Mexican life.