Labels: Adagio830
Review by: Alex Deller
Aha, last days here for the terminally underrated Burial Year: two of their own and a cover track. As usual it’s a roiling mass of low-tuned riffs, dissonant screeches and savage up-from-the-guts vocals, all of which makes for some pretty fucking brutal metallic hardcore. Never really thought of it before, but their choice of Unbroken’s ‘Blanket’ rather makes sense, the band conceivably standing as a modernised version of the politically-minded chugcore acts of the mid-90s who counted Groundwork, Chokehold and Swiss bludgeoners Mine among their number. Good effort from a band that’s sorely missed.
Zann, on the other hand, consistently fail to knock my socks off and actually had me worried to start with since a pressing plant fuck-up had the labels on the wrong sides of the record. Their basic template is not too dissimilar to Burial Year’s, with lots of metallic chun-chunnery and all the rest of it. Thing is, while all the right ingredients are present and correct it doesn’t boil over with the same insane rage, making for an amiable listen but never the by-the-throat ransacking you really need.