8/07/2007
Tracklist
01. pale face [5:56]
02. retina [3:58]
03. fools wanted, apply [3:34]
04. my track in the dust [6:21]
Info
Right from the first beats, “pale face” is a screaming, kicking act of musical violence, heavily beating chords, drums and lyrics into your face like there is no tomorrow. Hardcore has always been about the release of energy and tension, a cathartic moment that produces peace of mind and physic. Fresnel only need four songs to calm down a storm – a storm of heavy music, they fired up themselves. Some might say, that they have heard this many times before, but they ain’t really listening. So they ain’t hearing the honesty and dedication behind the expression of feelings like despair, rage and anger. This record makes me grow young again.
Debut-release of a band and a label – reason enough to celebrate. Not counting a demo and a contribution to a compilation (the “postcards from the heartland”-comp on Fire Walk With Me), “scenario” is the first record by Fresnel from Vienna and the first record to be released by noise appeal-records, also from Vienna. Not that it is really important where a band or a label comes from / is situated, using the internet and everything, but since I am also from Vienna, there is the old spark of “support your local scene” glowing up in me. And that is not the only old spark being fired up inside me.
Listening to the heavy-duty guitars, the disharmonic screaming, the enormously distorted and bass-heavy sound of this band, I am reminded very much of the days I used to spend in cold and moist cellars that were called clubs, listening to bands spilling out their heart’s blood to a bunch of drunken punks. Somewhere in-between a long row of unbearable bands, churning out the same rhythm, the same riff and the same stupid slogans over and over again, there was always one band that stood out by being different. Different sound, different lyrics, different ideas. Those I liked the most, were usually also of the heavier kind. The more distorted a band sounded, the more I liked it. I am sure not a lot has changed since I “dropped out” that scene, but I am quite sure that Fresnel would be the band standing out from the rest by virtue alone. In other words, if Fresnel are a mediocre band, hardcore must have gotten a lot better. But I doubt it heavily. Because I enjoy Fresnel a lot.
It is hard to put new life into hardcore, and I am talking about heavy, manic, sludgy hardcore that screams, kicks and falls into neurotic fits from time to time. Some people will tell you, that it is all done and over with ever since Neurosis became esoteric ambient-freaks. Fresnel will prove the opposite. The four songs on “scenario” are kicking heavily, bursting into fits of rage and screaming at the walls like patients in an insane-asylum. They will stop to take a breath from time to time but only because they’ve spent all their energy and anger and frustration already. Anger, energy and frustration are still three main pillars of hardcore / punkrock and everything associated with it.
Even though Fresnel mainly sing about relationships, and the bad parts of them being in the main focus, the hurt and pain and hopelessness, I still believe music like this to have a political message in itself. In my opinion the personal viewpoint expressed in the music in connection with an alternative lifestyle is worth more than the most correct political punkrock singing about veganism and war. Oh, I am quite sure that the “revolution” and the “evils that men do” are still of major concern to the leftist scene. Somehow they seem to survive without help all by themselves. More important than the zombified “issues” of leftist music is the fact there are still (and hopefully will always be) young people deciding to try things for themselves. Do a label, found a band, write a fanzine. There is no better school to learn about being open-minded, to learn to think for yourself, to get to the core of what has been called “enlightenment” in earlier years. And whenever that happens, the people responsible will get my support and my thumbs up. If the result is as fresh and energizing as this four track EP, then I am doubly delighted.
P.S.: The second release on noise-appeal is quite different to this one but also very good, a seven-song-CD by Once Tasted Life.
cracked-netzine
Listen: Retina
MySpace
http://www.myspace.com/fresnel
DD
MassMirror
Etiquetas: escenario, fresnel, hardcore, metal, postmetal
eraser at 9:24 a. m.
Comments:
Publicar un comentario
