Don The Reader

Hailing from South Bay California, Don the Reader are an amalgamation of many devastating hardcore influences and sounds. You can pretty much taste the Botch and Deadguy on your tongue after listening to a few songs, not that there’s anything wrong with that. Humanesque’s overall sound is a tornado of stuttering rhythms, tortured vocals and at times, harmonious ambience, as well there are plenty of detuned low-end breakdowns to boot. "Malfunction” is a great track to get an idea of the band’s dissonance and intensity via blast beats and an all around drum kit assault. Humanesque is a behemoth of a album that never quenches its thirst for more controlled chaotic noise but Don The Reader do give breaks from their sonically crushing sound with brief, haunting noise passages that work to make this album darker and heavier. For the band’s first full-length album, Humanesque is an accomplishment of brilliant hardcore that’s refreshing.