Labels: Hellbound – Secret Handshake – Throatruiner
Review by: Alex Deller
Meant to review the Throatruiner version of this and didn’t get round to it. Now Canuck label Secret Handshake have gone and reissued it, which means I can look kinda timely rather than plonking up another review that’s a year or two out of date. Coo. Anyhow, this French mob play some seriously ugly hardcore. I mean really ugly. Modern, also, in the sense that it cribs from all over the place in terms of influence (metallic hardcore, sludge, a soupçon of black metal…), but done with style, panache and a genuine, life-withering sense of hatred that puts it right at the top of the skull pile. Over the course of any one song you might catch whiffs of Integrity, Torch Runner, Eyehategod and Unruh as they tear between merciless metallic splendour, gutter-crawling indignities and, with ‘Scarce’, maudlin, distorted arpeggios that give way to huge Cavity-style lollops. It’s searing, fearsome stuff of a type you’d have to be bulletproof to be unaffected by, so if your tastes run to the heavy, shit-caked and hate-spewing you’ve got a welcome second chance to rock up and test your strength against them.