Sarabante – Remnants

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It is slightly surprising to see Southern Lord moving into crust territory, but with all things crust becoming slightly more ‘hip’ thanks to the interest of certain black metal acts, perhaps it should be considered inevitable. Remnants, the debut album from Greece’s Sarabante, is part of a series of releases from the label being released as a limited 1,000 run. Because limited runs are hip and underground, naturally. Ignoring all this though, the actual content of Remnants is actually rather good. One can understand a certain fury coming from Athens right now, and Sarabante have really captured this very well. There is a certain blackened edge to this – starting your album with a track called Satan is likely to conjure such imagery. But as the album continues, this turns into a full-on but very filthy hardcore record. The real stand out here is the band’s guitar tone, rich but incredibly earthy, managing to convey luscious sounding slow riffs but also delightfully working with the faster and more punk-like thrashing. The material is diverse and varied, ranging from moody slowness to a tempered, nasty aggression, all the while retaining some sense of melody. Overall, Remnants is a real breath of fresh air amongst the occasionally tired hardcore genre, and if this is what we can expect from a modern wave of crust-punk bands, then that is indeed something to look forward to. The album is released on CD via Southern Lord, and on incredibly cheap white vinyl from the band directly.

Written by James Donovan
More: 2011, Albums, Hardcore/Metalcore, Quick.Play Reviews, Sarabante