You Send Me Things, I Listen to Them: BÁTARD
Industrial noisepunk? Blackened post-metal?? Metallic post-punk electronic-core???
I went out to my mailbox last week where I surprised by a package that was, thankfully, not a goddamn bomb. Instead, it was a small envelope that contained a tiny lil CD. The Olds tell me this is something called a “Mini CD”. Frankly, I find the thing confusing and possibly threatening. I am genuinely unsure if placing this thing in my car stereo will destroy the CD player, so I went searching on Bandcamp. There, I found a band called Bátard‘s latest release, an EP called Pluies.
I dunno about this thing.
Pluies was released late last year, and after searching my inbox, found that no one had ever sent me anything about this band. The lone bit of promotion work for this record was a physical copy of a Mini CD sent via Witchcult Records, a cassette label that focuses on underground extreme releases. I reckon that bit of promo worked because I listened and man, I am perplexed but extremely engaged by Bátard’s Pluies.
“Oxymor” opens with the sound of a microchip melting before clattering into a noisy punk rock crash. It is followed by a desolate slow jam called “Sépulture” that wouldn’t sound out of place on a dystopian 80s sci-fi soundtrack. “Les Abysses” is a more straightforward lo-fi black metal number, complete with a double-speed second half. “Perspectives de Néant” could be mistaken for Amesoeurs on a dimestore budget with it’s cavernous grooves. But on “Un Aurtre Spleen” the band truly stands out. With keyboard stabs that summon the galaxies, springing percussion, and a propulsive post-punk beat, Bátard hits upon something unique and imminently jammable.
With Pluies, this three-piece takes a collection of ugly, broken noises and assembles them into a haunting decoupage. I’m not sure where they go from here but I’m interested to listen to what comes next. Hopefully I’ll get a full-sized CD in my mailbox in a few months.
You can pick up Pluies on cassette over at Witchcult Records.
