EP Review: Cripple Bastards – La tua foto sul marmo
Reviewed by Dan Barnes
Closing in on nearly forty-years of musical mayhem, Italian grinders Cripple Bastards issue their new EP this month, their first collection of new material since the last full-length album La Fine Cresce de Dentro in 2018, discounting the 2024 splits with Dead Transmission and Yacopsae.
Ever-present vocalist Giulio the Bastard has again reunited with long-term musical partners Schintu the Wretched on bass, Der Kommissar on guitar and drummer Raphael Saini for half-a-dozen raging blasts, doing what grind does best and railing at the state of the world.
La Tua Foto Sul Marmo, or Your Photo on Marble, does everything that you want from a Cripple Bastard’s record – except, perhaps, last longer than fifteen-minutes – blending fast and furious punk-infused grinders with some solid extreme metal riffing.
Il Respiro si Chiude (Breathing Shuts Down) is out of the traps with a reckless abandon, rapid fire drums and barking vocals reach a blistering pace in no time at all; jagged guitars and demonic screams give way to a brief breakdown and some respite, before building back, albeit in a melodic fashion, to hit those heights once more.
Scarto del Rimorso (Discard of Remorse) is one of the EP’s shorter numbers yet still manages a series of clearly distinctive riffs lending to a choppy punk charge. Vendicativo (Vindictive) is a deathgrinder from the outset, loaded with guttural screams and a hooky pre-chorus, it’s the musical equivalent of Good Cop/ Bad Cop, as it veers schizophrenically between blasts and thrashy passages.
La Tua Foto Sul Marmo (Your Photo on Marble) the title-track is the longest song here, arriving with solid drums and a deathy platform upon which the guitars and vocals can rage and rail. Giulio seems proper ageet – down-right mithered – at times, snapping and snarling through the fat, heavy low-end.
Never afraid to vary things up, Cripple Bastards have been at this long enough to know how and when to add melody, breakdowns or pauses, knowing that sometimes less is more and the effect can be even more musically devastating. L’Era Della Dispersione (Era of Dispersion) demonstrates such an approach, all within a couple of minutes; and closer, Ai Confini di Quel Che Puoi Dire (On the Brink of What You Can Say) just goes for it in a ninety-second – somehow melodic – classic grinder.
There’s an old saying that class is permanent and Cripple Bastards show their class in every note, not just on La Tua Foto Sul Marmo, but in all they do.
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