Yeah, I know, I know, another day another band doing the “downtuned metallic hardcore” thing. I’m as tired of it as you are at this stage, of hearing band after band trying to either be His Hero is Gone or Converge or..I dunno, some sort of cross between His Hero is Gone and Converge. It’s becoming harder and harder to find bands in the field with any identity of their own. But they’re out there. And England has one of the best – Manchester’s Pine Barrens.
Although their four track demo has only popped up online and in physical form this spring, the band have actually been around near on three years now, with a couple of false starts and delays before finally getting into full flow this year. That possibly explains why these guys don’t just sound like they’re flailing around with a bunch of half baked riffs as many of their peers are. Though then again, considering their line up contains ex members of the likes of Beecher and Atavist, the foursome were always gonna have a pretty clear grip on how to bust out the heavy jams. It’s world class stuff and the world needs to sit up and start fucking listening pronto.
“We need fear. Need destruction. We need words of instant threat.” sings Thom on opening track “Kingmaker” over an anxious riff and some pummeling drums before we build to a blasting section in the middle with a hint of black metal in the guitars. Next up is the heads down rage of “Product” which blazes along in a two and a half minute fit of rage, slowing only briefly for some melancholic guitar work about two thirds of the way through. “Goya I” follows in a similarly belligerent fashion but again it’s clear that in those guitars there’s some melody hidden away beneath the fury.
Pine Barrens “Product”
But it’s the last song, the slower but no less menacing “Binary”, drives along tensely for the most part before we hit an extended instrumental closing section that introduces a saxophone (no, really, a saxophone) to the mix. Clearly an idea from the “so crazy it just might work” section of the hardcore rule book, it fits beautifully and ends the tape on a moody note. Lynchian hardcore anyone? Works for me. The story goes the sax was provided by another musician who was working in a different section of the studio at the time who improvised along with the track. It was done in two takes. It sounds amazing.
Floating around online though it already may be, the demo has also been released on cdr by the band themselves and tape in the USA via Big Mountain. It stands head and shoulders above many a band out there touting demos and you need to pick up a copy as soon as possible. A split with Grinding Halt (one of Europe’s finest and most underrated bands
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