KARRAS: We Poison Their Young (DEATH METAL): review / opinion to read on Music Waves

We knew that Karras wouldn't limit itself to a single album, despite its playground allure. For those who missed the previous episode, this fully-fledged band brings together guitarist Yann Heurtaux (Mass Hysteria), drummer Etienne Sarthou (Deliverance) and singer/bassist Diego Janson (Sickbag). Three years ago, "None More Heretic" unwrapped the fruit of their approach: good old Swedish-style death metal (Entombed-style) bathed in grind and horror films (including "The Exorcist", of course). Not very original, but the desire coupled with an energy both brutal and filthy made this first draft enjoyable if not ambitious (which was not the point).

The trio are back with "We Poison Their Young", hollowed out of the same fetid, overexcited carcass. Thirteen tracks for twenty-minute, you don't need a calculator to work out that most of them spurt out at the speed of an acne pimple. 'Demons Got Rhythm' even lasts just eight seconds!

But Karras knows how to deliver relentless blows that break the linearity into which the album would otherwise have fallen. 'Prelude To The Depths', 'Roland Doe' (with a video ideally shot in the catacombs of Paris) and 'Lutheran Blade' wade through the steaming viscera of ashen death, while the final track, 'Negative Life', does more than sink into suffocating, hysterical doom.

With hoarse vocals, bass slapping like a stretched skin, guitars tuned lower than the ground and frenetic drums, our three lads are in unison with a pestilential and joyfully morbid opus. The beat is as hard as ever, and the inspiration is more at attention than on "None More Heretic", whose successor is just as capable of straining the neck as it is of stirring the bowels.

Twenty minutes isn't much, but it's still enough to measure the progress made since the first try, and to come away from a listening experience that makes your mucous membranes bleed. Standing head and shoulders above its predecessor, "We Poison Their Young" confirms that you should take Karras (very) seriously, whose blend of grind and crust is infectious! - Official website

KARRAS

WE POISON THEIR YOUNG

AUTRE LABEL

DEATH METAL