Fragmentado – Sobre la Roca

Here’s one of the angriest, most abrasive, rough and harsh releases of the year.

This beast came out in April, directly from Santiago, Chile. The debut of Fragmentado, a new local DIY punk band that has played with the likes of 886VG, Maldecir, Desastre, Gripe and Manual De Combate, hits you hard and direct in the face! Spilling their guts in these harsh and sharp songs, the trio’s music hits you like a baseball bat to the head. So let’s step into this ear-splitting, fast-paced album.

Ten noisy and dissonant songs, none of them over two minutes long, make up the body of this short, guttural release. Disturbing grunts and fuzzy instruments, blurred and distorted, make their way through your throbbing ears with this grinded, rotten punk.

The first few tracks quickly introduce us to the asperous rawness of this screeching selection of songs, each one going hard and strong. Sometimes we get slow parts, like in the middle of the 5th track, but this is just an illusion that fades away easily with the loud and thunderous instrumentation and the awesome angry vocals that seem to come from some unknown circle of hell.

Here we hear lyrics that talk about hopelessness and rejection, about the fears that accumulate in our minds and bodies, about being chained, lost and frustrated. You get kicked in the guts every day and you don’t know what to do but suffer, scream and wail in misery. There’s nowhere to look, your gaze is lost in rusty slogans, your mind is drowned in sour disillusionment. I am how I consume, I am how I produce and how I am consumed.

The ninth track of the ten that appear on this release is a cover of the song “Both” by the Dutch band Seein’ Red, originally from their split with Shikari. “If a nation wants it, it can have both, free elections and fucking slavery,” the song says, in a kindred spirit to the lyrics on this album.

All in all this is a very solid release. What stands out the most, at least for me, are the vocals provided by the bassist and guitarist, which go from grindcore to powerviolence to hardcore, filling this with a heavy and dark vibe that sticks to your body and plays very well with the songs and how they are built.