Crocus – Our Memories Dress Me in A Dead Lust

At times, progressive hardcore can be something of a joyless business. Hailing from Holy Roar Records, the same stable that gave us the excellent and refreshingly exuberant Rolo Tomassi, Crocus are an austere, unrelentingly-earnest, air-punching outfit, knee-deep in technical ability yet determined to make listening to their album as misanthropic a process as possible.

The production is sharp and effective and tracks like Not Alone and You Don't Belong inject enough flashes of originality to stand out. However much of the rest is somewhat formulaic and forlorn – albeit very competently performed – with an over-abundance of tapped riffs but a lack of any real groove. There are frequent glimpses of sadly-departed genre masters Botch, without ever pushing the envelope the way that band did a full decade ago. Thus Our Memories... emerges as one for extreme hardcore enthusiasts only, its exhaustingly grim outlook surely limiting its wider appeal.