Brutality. Perversion. Asociality. Heaviness. Destruction. Pain. Anger. Danger. Aggression. Rage. There are many words that have been used to describe this notoriously hated, uncomfortable and infamous French band that’s terrorising the Hardcore scene for 20 (!) years now. KICKBACK never gave a single fuck about trends, about expectations and about the unwritten laws of the scene. They simply give a fuck about nothing. Hated as they might be, their recently released record, Et le diable rit avec nous (“and the devil laughed with us”), is another skull crushing experience of how extreme music (read: Hardcore) still can be. If there is one band that really managed to combine heavy, brutal Hardcore, Black Metal and pure noise without tending to much in either direction but creating something new, a sonic, unparalleled mayhem, it’s KICKBACK. They keep walking the path they took with their previous record, No Surrender, but push the limits even further. Full review after the jump!
Listen:
KICKBACK caught my interest with No Surrender (sure enough they’ve released plenty of records before, but they just weren’t like that). On this record you could hear for the first time really present Black Metal riffs (KICKBACK‘s guitarist Toxic H also does the most fucked up Black Metal band on the planet, Diapsiquir). Combined with really unusual song structures and riffs and the scarriest vocals ever, No Surrender became one of my favourite Hardcore records.
And Et le diable rit avec nous keeps exactly that direction, but is even more extreme. On No Surrender you still had a lot of heavy breakdowns and typical fast Hardcore parts. Most of that is gone on the new record. But it’s not Black Metal either. All you get are weird, disharmonic riffs, syncopated rhythm patterns and waves of unpleasant noise. But KICKBACK wouldn’t be the band they are if Et le diable rit avec nous wouldn’t still be very energetic and straight forward. That might sound pretty weird, but check this record out for fucks sake, you’ll hear what I mean.
Do KICKBACK give a fuck about anything? The song It’s a burning hell has rapped vocals – no, KICKBACK never gave and will never give a fuck.
Order KICKBACK stuff directly from their label, Gangstyle Records.
Akerbeltz
December 7, 2011 at 4:08 pm
I believe the song with rapped vocals is the Geto Boys cover. “It’s A Burning Hell” is a Brainbombs cover.