la piena ep

Review: La Piena – Self Titled 7″ EP

Flood Alert!

In a whirlwind of guttural and screaming voices, buzzsaw-style guitars and bullet-shooting drums, the new 7” inch from La Piena explodes in our hands like a cluster bomb. La Piena is a five-piece band from the Grosseto province (in Tuscany) and the name means, literally, The Flood.

Those guys are absolutely not fresh men in the Italian underground scene, in fact they all come from other different projects, like Vanz, Colonnelli, Scum, Malanga and Toxic Discomfort, and coexistence of different souls is a feature that you’ll notice almost immediately when you’ll listen to these 7 inches of wax.
On one side we got the lyrics, totally fueled with angst and hate, screamed in Italian like the formula that is written in stone inside the classic Italian hardcore style, on the other side we got an hybrid music setting that leads us to different territories, with gurgling and muddy water puddles, surrounded by a disgusting stench. In fact, here we can find the other main influences of their sound, i.e. death and thrash metal, mitigating the hi-speed sound and adding more and more firepower to this vinyl machine gun.
Condannato, the opening track, shows us how a freezing breeze doesn’t always come from Scandinavia, but sometimes even from Tuscany, with a huge death metal aura. Then it’s absolutely impossible to walk this black waxed streets without resembling some screams, segments and moments that will obviously recall the huge and the only Slayer, as you can listen in Squali, maybe the best track of the record, and you’ll find yourself somewhere between Araya and co. and the most violent Italian hardcore bands like Un Quarto Morto (If you don’t know them, go and search info and listen. You’ll thank me).
Particular mention for the format. I am a huge seven inches fan, and even for the artwork that merges old school tattooing style with lysergic and bizarre elements in a twisted and weird subject.
Ladies and Gentlemen, four tracks, maximum sound violence and damage. Only 150 black vinyl copies, so get off your ass and buy yourself one!

Rash