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AMENRA have long been purveyors of some of the most harrowing and cleansing music of all time. Their music is akin to an aural purifying and the band have constantly delivered time and time again on every example of their recorded output. The band have followed up their last album, 2021’s De Doorn, with not one but two EPs in With Fang And Claw and De Toorn and in both of these releases, the band lay bare the bones of their captivating and life affirming music while harking back to their early days and laying down the foundations for a brave new sonic world.
With Fang And Claw takes its inspiration from the early days of AMENRA and their Belgian hardcore roots, taking it back to a time when their influences were bands like the amazing CONGRESS and REGRESSION and the wider H8000 scene, music that still sounds phenomenally brutal to this day. Anger is an energy for sure and it helped shaped the ethos and music of AMENRA and With Fang And Claw, the band deliver a fitting representation of those times in the present.
With Fang And Claw consists of two tracks, Forlorn and Salve Mater and these two songs pack more power than most full length albums. Forlorn goes straight for the jugular from the get go and, even more importantly, straight for the heart in a maelstrom of sonic anguish and a powerful sense of sense of dread is felt throughout while Salve Mater follows a similar path but is more direct in its fury. It has to be said that it is not all full on brutality though as the gentler passages in both of these songs add an air of calm to proceedings and of course, end up amplifying the power of the music of AMENRA tremendously.
De Toorn follows a much more cinematic path in its vision and execution while still displaying the razor sharp precision and heartbreaking heaviness that the band’s music has with both epic tracks on this release, Haden and De Toorn (Talisman) being simply incredible and breathtaking pieces of music. Haden starts off with an emotional almost spoken word narration as it builds and builds in the most perfect fashion as AMENRA do best before the utterly harrowing vocals of Colin H. Van Eeckhout erupt in the most cathartic way (as it does on each song on these two EPs) and the music just keeps on building and building again. The sound of catharsis has long been a key factor in the music of Amenra and it feels perfect here again.
De Toorn (Talisman) amps things up on the epic nature scale and the sheer power of it will take you and your soul on a journey that you will never forget. Again, the building and building of the music reaches fever pitch before an explosive finale that will leave even the hardened listener telling from what they have just heard. With both With Fang And Claw and De Toorn, AMENRA provide you with a salute to the past, present and future of their music. What they will come up with next is another thrilling prospect too, and needless to say, as with the whole gamut of their musical arsenal, it will be nothing short of incredible.
Rating: 8/10
De Toorn and With Fang And Claw is out now via Relapse Records.
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The post EP REVIEW: De Toorn & With Fang And Claw – Amenra appeared first on Distorted Sound Magazine.
