Painted – Narrows

About as underground as you can be without actually being a corpse or a mole, supergroup Narrows has been issuing utterly vile hardcore for the past five years, and to irritatingly little fanfare.  Comprising of luminary members of These Arms are Snakes, Bullet Union and Unbroken (to name but some of them), second album Painted seems destined to push them to the forefront of a scene that has been precious more than stagnant for a long while.

Under the Guillotine is about as raw an opener as you could possibly ask for; a clean sludgy groove laying waste before a chorus which drips with vitriol and swagger; and an end-groove that could cure constipation in the most irregular of folks.  Absolute Betrayer punches, tears and rips away, containing more genuine aggression than 90% of the metal out there at the moment, and in no small part to Botch’s Dave Verellen who sounds like shitting down people’s necks is an innocuous past-time.

The album’s centrepiece Greenland harks back to Newly Restored from debut New Distances – considered, and content to wend its conspicuously understated way into a squall of feedback and gangling grooves over the course of an intense eight minutes.  As the only track clocking over three and a half minutes, it’s a punishing halfway mark and carves a gaping path for the frenetic final four tracks, including album-highlight and more-Deftones-than-Deftones Final Mass.

Aside from being recorded partially over the internet (due to Jodie Cox’s visa issues), Painted is a consummate triumph; albeit one that may well be shot in the foot for it’s lack of availability on CD.  For pure authentic aggression and the sound of five people thoroughly enjoying themselves, it’s unlikely this can be topped anytime soon.  Everyone should seriously be all over this.

Matt Crane says….

To find out more about Narrows, click HERE.