Hurakan is back in action.
Four years have passed since their last release, but Danny Louzon (vocals), Raphaël Darras (bass), Maxime Maréchal (guitar), Thomas Moreau (guitar), and Loris Marquand (drums) are now ready to unveil Eternal Scars, their fourth album.
A dissonant sound introduces Break Their Spine, the opening track, which takes a little while to get going but then allows the band to explode all at once, delivering a modern sound backed by a rather harsh mix that highlights the vocals and drums while letting a few samples build ominous tones in the background. The traditional Deathcore break marks the climax of the intensity, followed by Parasite and its choppy riffs, where the bass makes a strong comeback, smoothly introducing the various mosh parts while allowing the vocals to take on more hardcore-inspired elements. There’s a brief moment of respite with the introduction of Disgrace, a rather dark track that places a few choruses at strategic moments – sometimes even doubled with sub-bass to emphasize the heaviness – and then, with metronomic precision, the band moves on to Help Me, a track that doesn’t hesitate to offer both fairly simple passages and flashes of technicality, though it ends a bit too quickly. The Mirror then takes over and, in turn, douses us copiously with blast beats and other spasmodic patterns, but once again, it ends fairly quickly to let André Comte-Sponville’s voice speak to us about his relationship with death, thereby properly introducing Eternal Scar. A gentle melody accompanies it, but the band will, of course, return to its original fury and strike with a touch of melancholy in its samples, creating a welcome contrast that will carry throughout the entire track, before giving us a chance to catch our breath once more before Dogma takes over. Once again, it’s with this modern touch that the band builds up its breathless brutality before a retro sample leads into Blind Creed and its in-your-face rhythm section, which waits only a few moments during the cybernetic keyboards before getting back to work. One might even notice some Djent roots and the sudden appearance of a raptor, but it’s ultimately Hollow Soul that sweeps us away with its epic lead guitar touches, which give way to a crushing mosh part followed by a dissonant solo, before allowing Lilith to return to slightly more old-school riffs to close out the album – not without making one last use of samples, effects, and sub-bass to round out its rhythm section.
If you’re always eager to express your love for modern Deathcore and its polished productions, Eternal Scars will undoubtedly become your go-to album, and although it’s a bit short, it allows Hurakan to showcase the results of their evolution through these ten new tracks.
70/100
