“Black Walls”
French metalcore quartet Vera Cruz makes a fist-pumping, head-banging, mosh-inducing debut in the US next week with Skinandteethandnails, the band’s first release for home-country label Season of Mist.
On the 11-song full-length, the down-tuned fury intermixes with a handful of melodic choruses and clean vocals, and a few other surprises turn up unexpectedly. “Black Walls” is the best example of said surprises, as a minute of high-octane punk/hardcore transitions from a final screamed phrase to an eerie, lengthy, plunking banjo outro with a whistling background.