San Luis Potosí's Cotärd have been shovelling the grime in Mexico since their initial inception back in 2018. They've established themselves as major players in the Mexican, DIY Punk Scene booking tours, driving bands and playing a perfected 90's style Swedish/UK, D-Beat/Crust. This new, 4 Track E.P. finds them laying into their particular blend of the dark and dismal and is their first release since their 2020 Demo and in their most focused and punishing form. The winded exasperations call back to the vocal stylings of classics like Doom and the musical D-Beat/Crust attack reminiscent of juggernauts like Disgust and Napalm Raid are clear and not unfounded comparisons. There's a bleak levity weaving through the relentlessness and it showcases that incessant brooding of the human existence. A not-so-subtle cry for a way out in a world gone mad.Our take: Neon Taste Records dips into Mexico’s punk underground for this nasty little 4-song ripper. Cotärd’s sound is brutal, fast, heavy, and very dark. While they’re unmistakably a hardcore band—moments here sound like the purest Swedish käng—they borrow some of the damp and grimy aesthetic of old school death metal. Not to say Cotärd sounds like death metal at all… they don’t blast and their riffs don’t sound like death metal, but there’s a color of doom here I associate with raw 80s underground metal. Cotärd’s approach reminds me of Pollen and Absolut, two other bands whose d-beat hardcore sounds like it’s draped in a fog of old school death metal. As the description notes, fans of Doom will also find plenty to like here. Pummeling.
