More dense, glowering stuff from Ojo Por Ojo, and of course it’s fantastic. I don’t really know what the heck they’re trying to do, but it sounds so utterly complete in terms of sound, vision and worldview that it hardly matters. Everything seems hurled up from a bleak hollow place, be it the desperate, aggrieved vocals, the lumpily surging guitars or the blank-eyed drum beats that rain unflinchingly down like words chiselled into stone. Rudimentary Peni remain the most obvious leaping-off point, but the leaden lurches and foreboding atmosphere also speak to Amebix, Hellhammer and even Blasphemy if you squint to the point where everything begins to blur. Like everything else they’ve released ‘Leprosario’ is odd and utterly uncommon, and all the more essential for it.
