Drawbacks are releasing their new record with Eternalis Records and I listened and reviewed it for our zine.
This band comes from Lille, France and they are very interesting. The music is hardcore punk done in an emotional and melodic way, yet with enough aggression to make it harsh at the moments, yet never losing the subtle melancholy making me kinda sad and happy at the same time while listening to this record. There are 10 songs on this record and it all reminded me of something and I couldn´t remember what. And, suddenly I knew it! It all reminded me of the bands I used to listen in the 1990-ies being then kinda new school but now it is just super hardcore punk with a lot of anthemic old school riffs like in Empathy or Rebuild, those two being my favorite songs on this record, yet the whole of the material is just fantastic with melody, screaming vocals, parts just made for singalong, not being that macho bullshit representing hardcore too often nowadays. There are some emo/screamo parts, you can call it this or that, but in the end, when you draw the line it is just great old hardcore to warm your heart with some emotions and rekindle the flame!
No Sanctuary from Pamplona just released their new record. The thing about this band is they sound pretty original and different from other clicheed classical d-beat hardcore punk bands. No, they rather choose another way, mixing crust hardcore punk with darker elements of Celtic Frost, Black Sabbath, sludge and experiments of Amebix. This record contains 7 songs that are maybe a bit longer in duration but in no way boring. I love the dark atmosphere, slow rolling of drums in doom parts, the vocals ranging from shouting, chanting, almost gothic melodic singing, screaming and whispering. Also, I love when band uses samples in their music, No Sanctuary use samples very smart in their song structures thus making songs even richer with thick atmosphere. The lyrics are in English and in Spanish, from great ode to John Carpenter and VHS era(He Lives) to horror(Curse of the Werewolf) and for me the best song on this record, epic The Weaver in the Vault being Lovecraftian in atmosphere and lyrics. This is truely one of underground´s gems so go listen to this one.
I met Ray Carlisle at this years Punk Rock Holiday when he was playing ball in front of the stage in the hot afternoon hours with his kid Milo. Later that night they delivered mindblowing fantastic gig, that will stay in my memory for as long as I live. This seven inch is in fact the split e.p. of Teenage Bottlerocket and Ray´s kid Milo´s one man band Human Robots. Both bands provided two songs with Teenage Bottlerocket having two songs Everything To Me and Olivia Goes To Bolivia delivering mindblowing pop punk Ramonescore like we are used to from this fantastic band. Human Robots´side delivers two songs Step On ´Em All and I Want To Hang Out With You. The latter being a bit better, but it is the fine effort from this young man and if he continues that way, the future is bright for him, because he will for sure make killer music one day.
KRAYKULLA-WEBZINE 