Friday, June 7, 2013

REVIEW: HUMMUNE - CRAFTED IN DARKNESS


According to their Facebook page, the band name refers to an immunity to humans, which sounds like the best immunity ever, since humans are just about the most destructive and dangerous force the Earth has ever known. This band’s brand of pummeling, hardcore noise is a very close second.


Hummune was seemingly constructed in 2009 by sinister robots in some Southampton, UK factory with the intention of beating human brains to a gelatinous pulp. I haven’t been able to locate surnames for the three lethal members of this band, furthering my suspicion that they are not human at all, but Terminator-style machines that just happen to have been programmed to rock hard enough to splinter teeth. Crafted in Darkness, their full-length debut, pulses with Unsane’s jarring energy and drags hardcore through sludge like the best work on Fudge Tunnel’s Hate Songs in E Minor. Guitarist/vocalist Stu and bassist/vocalist Mike have rasps that finds the broken glass-covered middle ground between Justin Broadrick’s growliest moments in Godflesh and Lars Göran Petrov’s work in Entombed, just drenched with reverb. The rhythm section (Rik on drums, Mike mentioned previously) is phenomenal, digging deep trenches for mosh pit victims while the guitar soars and stabs. These guys have the tools and skill to do some serious damage.


Then you listen to “Moth” and “Into Dust” to open the album and realize you’re in for even more harm than you anticipated. These songs hit hard but still contain a ton of texture, from splashes of shoegaze to the whispered vocal delivery on “Claw.” Some of the gentler moments remind me of early Deftones and work beautifully to enhance the foreboding mood before the distortion levels every building in a kilometer radius. Not every song hits with the same efficient fury (“Inside” features a jarring rhythm that unfortunately murders the momentum, “Driven to Husk” plods along without the demolishing riffs that made predecessor “Rise” so deadly) but Crafted in Darkness is still a damn good slab of noisy, metallic rock and hardcore. The sneaky groove of “Era” closes out this album on a muscular note, ending so ferociously that you almost forget the intricate songwriting and melodic guitar work snaking around the bass rhythm just a few minutes prior.


Listening to Crafted in Darkness may not make you immune to the frustrations and dangers of dealing with humanity, but for almost one hour you’ll feel like Hummune have toughened you up to deal with all their shenanigans in stride. Either that, or your brain will be gelatinous pulp. But hey, this is metal, you can’t make an omelet without bruising some brains.


Check out Hummune on Spotify or over here at Bandcamp:  http://hummune.bandcamp.com/album/crafted-in-darkness


And follow them on Facebook for news on shows and releases:  https://www.facebook.com/hummune

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