Review by Carl on September 1, 2024.

This one showed up on my 'noisy old school underground shit' radar because this band features Karl Patton of Impulse Manslaughter and Alehammer repute, and it has to be said: whatever expectations I had surrounding this release, the band manages to live up to them.

Stylistically, Namland walks down the path that was paved in the late '80s and early '90s by such noisy bastards like Doom (UK), Extreme Noise Terror, and Disrupt, with an added smattering of "Scum" era Napalm Death. The primitive crust/hardcore riffing gets propelled forward by the relentless jackhammering d-beat drumming, poured into abrasive short, and volatile songs. It's a style that immediately brings to mind the stuff that was churned out in the UK around the second half of the 80s by soap-dodging misfits such as Ripcord, Chaos UK, Heresy, and those other Brit acts mentioned above. What grabs the ear most on this platter is the dual vocal attack, one a hardcore punk shout and the other a gruff guttural grunt, an element to their sound definitely borrowed from the already mentioned ENT and Namland's fellow countrymen Disrupt. It is not a style heavily reliant on technical prowess or intricate song structures, but more the other way around. The music is simple, abrasive, and to the point, with that last one perhaps best exemplified here by the 8-second blastbeat strike "Ash Wednesday". It's music in a way I like best, really. Aggressive and to the point, you simply can't beat that, you know.

Now, while the music on offer is simple, raw, and abrasive, the same can be said about the production, a term I'm using quite loosely here, by the way. These are 2 track recordings, and a band does not have a lot of room to play around with something like that. Mind you, this is not unlistenable or anything like that, but the sound is definitely raw and most certainly unpolished. The guitars have that sandpaper-like buzzing vibe to 'em, while the two vocalists are struggling to get on top of each other, while the drums (cozily tucked away in the background) are mostly diminished to a battering snare drum and an undefined rattling of cymbals. Somewhere in there is also a bass guitar as well. The balance between the different elements in the music also shifts from track to track, with the vocals sometimes way up front, other times more into the background, with only the guitars more or less on a constant level throughout. Again, this is raw and unpolished, yet not unlistenable, and this approach to recording simply goes well with music that sounds equally rough 'n' ready.

While this is a pretty niche style of music, enveloped in a pretty inaccessible sound mix to boot, I still like this stuff. As a band, Namland wasn't exactly on the same level as the aforementioned ENT or Disrupt, being decidedly more rough around the edges when it came to composing and execution of their music, but I still find this an entertaining little platter. It does not skimp on either aggression or intent and simply goes for the throat in a none-too-subtle way, something I can totally appreciate.

This type of stuff certainly isn't for mass consumption, but if you're into old-school raw crust/grind, check it out, I'd say.

Rating: 7 out of 10