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Ripping hardcore punk from French Basque country. True to the tradition of Basque punk music, it is played with intense passion and a rawness that feels like the songs are barely being held together. Packaging comes complete with a booklet and silk screened cover.
Our take: Debut vinyl from this band out of French Basque country, though they’ve been kicking around for quite some time now (since at least 2011) with a handful of cassette releases and appearances on numerous comps, including a couple of high-profile ones like Not Normal’s Welcome to 2013 and Maximumrocknroll’s Sound the Alarms. This is really the first time I’m sitting down with Hondartzako Hondakinak (whose name I will never tire of saying aloud, by the way), though, and I like what I hear. One of my friends said that this EP sounds kind of like an old X-Port Plater release, and indeed there’s something here that does strongly recall early 80s Norwegian hardcore… perhaps it’s the way that HH are able to sound both brutal and subtle at the same time. Their songs are blindingly fast, but at the same the rhythms are very solid and in the pocket. Their riffs are frantic, but there’s also a subtle melodicism apparent in the songwriting, and I think I even hear a minor chord or two in there. Mostly, what characterizes this EP, though, is a sense of desperate urgency that recalls gems of modern punk like the two great, essential Otan EPs. Wrap it all up in an eye-catching sleeve and you have a pretty crucial slab of European hardcore.