Austria‘s punk 4-piece RED GAZE is a band I happened to listen to recently through Vienna‘s DIY label Numavi Records, while I was premiering the video/single of indie rockers Land Of Ooo, with their brand new S/T 3-track EP.
Firmly rooted in the DIY punk ethic, you will hardly find the band on social media, the group’s debut album “Cuts” at the start of the year already provided a glimpse of further developments from the bracing bursts, wailed at your face, of their early post-hardcore sound to slightly less crumbling atmospheres, darker and more brooding, albeit not less intense and energetic, the guitars are still serrated, but angular and morose, the bass pulse ominously in the foreground, a visceral and minimalistic brand of post-punk informed by all the gripping tension and the urgency of late 70’s bands like Crisis and Warsaw and more recently Diät, Hexdebt and Marble Eye.
Cracking example of this, unlike the equally effective first two tracks steeped in a severe and invigorating bleak angst-ridden punk hues, is the final “Blister Blaster”, about a man consumed by repressed rebellion and misplaced causticism, that unleashes wiry, fragmented reverberating guitar bleeds and abrasive riffs, underscored by pounding tight drums, darkened by meandering looming bassline, fitly injecting a hypnotic, restless, simmering feel heightened by weary, pent-up spoken vocals exuding thick layers of anxiety and distress, in an overwhelming peer pressure push to escape reality for good.
RED GAZE S/T EP is available, on digital and ltd. Tape, via Numavi Records Bandcamp.
