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Buñuel — Mansuetude
(Skin Graft GR159, 2024, CD / DL)

by Jon Davis, Published 2025-10-27

Mansuetude Cover art

An album by Buñuel, as far as I can tell, is a deep dive into intense and noisy rock. There’s also a lot of screaming involved. Now, screaming is not something that generally appeals to me, especially not in large doses, but in this case it seems to work. Mansuetude presents nearly an hour of music, so it is a bit much to take in at one go. The group features members from both Italy and the United States: Andrea Lombardini (bass), Franz Valente (drums), Xabier Iriondo (guitar), and Eugene S. Robinson (vocals) — I’ll let you guess which one is the American. A few guests feature on individual tracks, such as David Binney (saxophone, electronics), Jacob Bannon (vocals), Andrea Beninati (cello), Timo Ellis (keyboards), Duane Dennison (guitar), and Megan Ozstrosits (vocals). The general M.O. involves thunderous pounding drums from Valente, a massive bass sound from Lombardini often involving distorted chords, heavy riffs interrupted by feedback and effects from Iriondo, and the aforementioned screaming of Robinson, which is sometimes replaced by actual singing, spoken parts, and effects. Within these parameters, there is variation of many factors, with some ominous, slow throbbing (“Leather Bar”), thrashing post-punk (“High.Speed.Chase”), mid-tempo crunch (“Bleat”), and more. Lombardini and Valente make a formidable rhythm section, with seemingly boundless energy. At times I’m reminded of Pere Ubu translated into a much noisier realm. Certainly Buñuel is not going to appeal to everyone, but their brand of intense, noisy post-punk has a lot of art buried in its DNA.

Filed under: New releases, 2024 releases

Related artist(s): David Binney, Buñuel

More info
http://bunuel.bandcamp.com/album/mansuetude

 

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