Què? Well one look at the cartoon cover art of this one and I expected a zany listening experience. Mocs & Cucs or to give them their full name Milford Mocs & Gunther Cucs translate from native Catalan to ‘Mucus & Worms’ (how nice). The duo released their debut album back in 2011 and since then a rake of singles. This is their second full length, the title of it means ‘Let’s burn the fucking banks.’ Two new members have joined them recently to flesh things out to a quartet. Musically this is classed by some as heavy and power metal but although that may have been the case when they started out this is much more in the vein of thrash and crossover. With the title in mind and other songs that apparently mean things like ‘You are disgusting,” “Let’s hang the Viceroy’ and ‘The Age Of Chimpanzees’ there is no doubt no shortage of social awareness and political commentary included.
Plenty of chugging guitars and bouncy rhythm as the band get into things with the title track. Vocals are nasally and occasionally shrill, there’s a few growls and some backing chants. It all goes over my head a bit as it is sung in native tongue but the tune has a bangers and smash type, tried and tested party thrash vibe about it. Add a few screaming leads and it’s all pretty standard but enjoyable enough. ‘Ets repugnant’ adds some crooning which is a bit too jolly considering the ‘I Hate People’ message, Anti Nowhere League it ain’t. ‘Pengem el virrei’ adds a bit of a zombie film sounding morbidity to the melody and some ghoulish vocals. This one stood out and shuffles around the graveyard nicely. However, ‘El candidat’ moves to the ever dreaded pop punk genre which I personally cannot stand. It’s an atypically annoying happy-clappy singalong anthem, as catchy as a dose of the clap which may well serve a purpose catching the attention of Green Day when they come to town and provide a support band slot. It also gets a radio edit at the end having me running for the stop button in desperation to shut it off.
Thrash standards such as ‘Massa gent’ are much better, not exactly re-inventing anything but banging away with enthusiasm. I was hoping this would continue along these lines to the end but… ‘Astre guía’ is a horrible ballad that is guaranteed to have the hardiest fan crying into their tapas and wine outside the local tavern if they were serenaded by it. So overall a few decent numbers but considering its particular regional slant I can’t say this one has travelled well or will be successful getting much attention outside its immediate locale.
(4/10 Pete Woods)
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