Ask the average person what they know about Luxembourg, and they probably won’t get a lot further than (a) shit at football (b) rich/tax haven (c) something about the EU, they had a meeting there once, right?
Well stick this in your fact needle and shoot it up: post rock or math rock or whatever this website is about is alive and well in the Grand Duchy of Luxembourg – despite it being one of the smallest independent nations in Europe. Exhibit A*: No Metal In This Battle, who have just released their first full-length, entitled Paprika. (their previous EP, Ours, was reviewed here too)
Like all healthy young Luxembourgers, these guys all probably speak at least 3 languages fluently, but it’s clearly no big deal because vocals aren’t really something they go in for. What they have gone in for on Paprika is a dense fug of tropical beats, chonking riffage and 70s German funk keyboard. Which sounds like it would be weird, but actually isn’t, it’s proper banging.
The songs have quiet bits, heavy bits, tribal bits and other adjective bits, all woven together with abstract nouns and metaphors (in sonic form) in a way that is as pleasing to the ears as it is to the pelvis. And what I mean by that is: having chosen to be into a music scene that chiefly lends itself to exaggerated head-bobbing / foot-tapping or, at best, what is essentially jumping violently in a small circle, it’s nice to hear something that you can actually dance to.
In short, No Metal In This Battle have made an album that is as coherent and quality as this review isn’t. Ganz gutt, Bouwen, ganz gutt.
*FYI, Exhibit B: Mutiny On The Bounty
File Under
Afrobeat, instrumental, post rock, peppery
Sounds A Tad Like
Vessels with a sprinkling of early Def Leppard and this.
Standout Tracks
The title track, Paprika. Watch the painfully classy video now
Price
€8 (Bandcamp)
Location
Luxembourg, bitches