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Music

Check Out His Electro Blue Voice and "Tartlas" So You Aren't Totally Left Out

Noisy, droning Italian post-punk greatness streaming now before everyone else figures it out

Every year, there's a band you kick yourself for not getting into sooner. For me last year, that band was Italian post-punkers His Electro Blue Voice and my, how did I not come across this monster before? They're masters of aggressive repetition with layers of twisting guitars more complex than they appear to be, amounting to feedback-laden seductiveness. “Eat Sons,” from their Dead Sons EP is nearly a perfect song, a compact offering of bliss and through locking guitars and drums into a warm, formidable trance. Sub Pop released HEBV's full-length Ruthless Sperm in 2013 and that's telling: they sound like the Seattle we once knew jamming in loops. Their heaviness becomes a lullaby; you hum along subservient to the riff, those hums become chants, and those chants become shouts because you never knew a band could overwhelm like that. It's self-renewal rock.

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Where HEBV really distinguish themselves is that they sound insanely awesome blasting from your car with the top down (or at least the windows down), like Van Halen and AC/DC took under a dual mentorship of Dylan Carlson and Junior Kimbrough. How can a band be meditative and so rocking at the same time? We're gonna need a new word for “power trio,” because that isn't enough for them.

So, you new to 'em? Well, you're getting the most intense crash course possible with “Tartlas,” a fucking 19 minute track from their split with fellow Italian post-punkers Havah, out February 17th as Maple Death Records' inaugural release. Heard 'em before? Well, here's a new favorite for you all the while. This song builds up in three similar, but compellingly hypnotic, combinations of melody battling noise, complete with blackened shrieks. Even at 19 minutes, everything in this song, from the sun-drenched feedback in the beginning to the freak-outs within, make up for some of the most attention-demanding rock. Blast this to cleanse, blast this to revel, blast this because, simply, it rules.

Pre-order the split here.

HIS ELECTRO BLUE VOICE on TOUR
13/02 Geneva, CH - Kalvingrad Usine
14/02 Strasbourg, FR - October Tone secret show
15/02 Leipzig, DE - S9/(ex-)BlackHammer
16/02 Erfurt, DE - Cafe Tiko
17/02 Munich, DE - Kafe Kult
18/02 Berlin, DE - Urban Spree
19/02 Paris, FR - Espace B
20/02 Basel, CH - Hirscheneck
21/02 Bologna, IT - Atelier Sì