This was a pleasant discovery. I had never heard of either of these bands until the other day when I was ordering a bunch of stuff and saw this. I was initially drawn to it by the artwork, and as I went on to check out the two bands on this split, Surroundings and Pellinore, I was very excited.The album description for 'World Darkness' uses the term 'dark hardcore' to describe these bands, and I think it's a pretty good fit. Both bands have a similar style but are distinctly different sounding.
Surroundings reminds me a lot of The Banner and bands like Trap Them, as they float between really slower parts and an assault of blast beats. Pellinore is really noisy fast hardcore that reminds me of a more determinedly evil sounding Trash Talk. Each band contributed 4 songs to this release, with Surroundings opening and Pellinore with the second half.
Surroundings' four tracks are a furious assault that never lets go even when things slow down. It's really heavy and it's really awesome. When it's fast, it's pummeling, when it slows down it's heavy, and they couple it all with melodies and ambiance and it's a very compelling, dark sounding listen. There are a lot of parts of very minimal music and noise, but they move things along rather than impede them as some bands do.
Pellinore on the other hand, apart from their opening track, is almost always going non-stop. They are a fast barrage of sound that doesn't mess around, their tracks seem over and done with all too soon, but their half isn't much shorter than the first half. It all sounds good and the bands play off of each other very well.
This is a split worth checking out, and two bands that are worth checking out. I will certaintly be going through their older material very soon.
Surroundings on MySpace
Pellinore on MySpace
Free Cake Records
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