Spain hasn’t been my go to location for hardcore in my collection over the last 30 years or so as these Basque Country bruisers unleash a fifth album heavily tinged with metallic components. With all lyrics sang in Basque or Spanish I cannot purport as to their subject matter but I suspect there is heavily politicised content based on the promo notes.

Opening this muscly release is “In Justicia” a track that will have Hatebreed fans revelling in the down tuned aural thuggery and copious double kick deluging that is used to fatten out the bands stripped back guitar sound which I particularly liked. The innate catchiness of the songs resides within the infectious guitar hooks that have that pit friendly bounce you expect within this genre. Similarly “Lo Sufrirás” continues that rampant dense pounding as the gradual build up leads into the vocal roar as the vocals have a tinge of Lou Koller (Sick Of It All) in their tone, also something I really like too as they are macho but not overtly machismo for the sake of it, as a cool breakdown riff is inserted accompanied by the drum fill sections making the song varied and engaging.

The songs tend to be longer than you’d expect for metallic hardcore as the five minutes of “Do It Yourself” proves with its thundering double kick rhythm before the riff break and cymbal smashing and skull cracking interruption. Initially I was rather indifferent to this album mainly due to the similarity to other well established acts in the field but the Basque Country brawlers have a knack of drilling potent bullets into the body as on the title track which takes on a guise of other metallic hardcore acts like Terror, Broken Teeth, etc. However the song is also hued by more melodic strains that possess an eerie aura before the song returns to the fury of what the band is extremely good at, namely pummelling hardcore beatdowns.

“Asesinos” continues that rich metallic vein with a juggernaut double bass intro led section that relents for the catchy riff insertion as that pit friendly ethos I’ve already mentioned is in full power here. Veering slightly off track is the closing track “Ene Lagun Galduk” which sees a collaboration with a friend of the bands called Iban Gorriti who also contributed to the “Do It Yourself” tune. In this closer the vocals change courtesy of Iban whose cleaner tone adds another dimension to the bands formidable repertoire. Being slightly more upbeat and melodic the song drifts into a more commercial framework but still retaining the energy and power of the bands formula before the main vocals step in.

Anybody into the bands I’ve already mentioned would do well to pick this angry little beast up as it is rife with catchy down tuned riffing vandalism.

(8/10 Martin Harris) 

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