Labels: self released
Review by: James Williams
Here’s six tracks of “Mathcrust” from Strasbourg, France (their words not mine).
Haut&Court blast from the off. They play heavy crust, which is more aligned to
hardcore but with some mathy parts. One thing’s for sure, they are crushingly
heavy. The vocals are low growls and the instrumentation is furious. Haut&Court
flit between short and long songs here, but always striving for maximum impact.
In the longer songs like Krokodil, the band throw in some post-hardcore inspired
instrumental passages, which are guitar driven and semi-sludgy. Fourth song
Colision sees them throw in some off-kilter time signatures to show more of their
math influences. I was a bit worried that this EP would sound muddy due to it being
digital, but that’s not the case at all. It doesn’t sound super clean, but then you don’t
want that from a hardcore band. The volume on the recording is huge. Life is a full
fourteen seconds of crazed noise in the vein of Napalm Death. This EP will appeal
to people who take their metal more seriously and prefer D-beat. La Vie is streaming
on Haut&Court’s bandcamp page, so if you like really heavy, crushing hardcore, you
should probably have a listen. Solid stuff!