Buñuel return with Mansuetude, the band’s first release outside of their outlandish trilogy of albums (comprising A Resting Place for Strangers, The Easy Way Out and Killers Like Us). A co-release between SKiN GRAFT and Overdrive, arriving 25th October 2024.
BUÑUEL boasts the singular vocals and razor sharp lyrics of Eugene S. Robinson (ex-Oxbow) and a powerhouse Italian trio comprised of guitarist Xabier Iriondo (Afterhours, A Short Apnea), bassist Andrea Lombardini (The Framers) and drummer Franz Valente (Il Teatro Degli Orrori). Mansuetude was produced by Timo Ellis, and features guests including Jacob Bannon (lead singer of Converge), guitarist Duane Denison (the Jesus Lizard, Tomahawk,The Denison Kimball Trio), vocalist Megan Osztrosits (Couch Slut), cellist Andrea Beninati and David Binney on alto saxophone and vocals.
The music on Mansuetude warps and buckles with complexity, freedom, tenderness and primaeval energy all at once. A prime example is the lead single “Drug Burn,” crunchy, melodic and harder than a lot of hardcore. About the track the band comments;
“One of the steadfast rules the Hells Angels used to tout to members, NO DRUG BURNS. Which just goes to show, there really IS honour among, well you know. Following a wayward path to an even more wayward song, BUÑUEL’s rendering of said BURN will make your ears (and eyes, if you’re lucky enough to see the video) burn.”
MANSUETUDE TRACK LISTING:
01 Who Missed Me
02 Drug Burn
03 Class
04 Movement No. 201
05 Bleat (with Jacob Bannon of Converge)
06 A Killing On The Beach
07 Leather Bar
08 High.Speed.Chase.
09 American Steel (with Duane Dension of the Jesus Lizard)
10 Fixer (with Megan Osztrosits of Couch Slut)
11 Trash
12 Pimp
13 A Room In Berlin
The title, Mansuetude – meaning “meekness” or “gentleness” – might seem like a juxtaposition when listening to the record that is, in Eugene’s words, “extreme but articulate”, however the record aims to convey a balancing of different forces and shades of being which make up the human experience. Throughout Mansuetude, Buñuel take every given opportunity to stretch out their musical tendrils towards discomfort, surrealism, and the deconstruction of tradition, as they reach absolute abandon. They go well beyond the realm of noise rock, encompassing many moods from post-hardcore to avant-noise, hard-blues to post-industrial, symphonic to trash metal and even free-jazz.
Drummer Franz comments that “Buñuel is a name that embodies a certain cultural and literary reference, which evokes an entire world. Like his films, our Buñuel is surrealism. We take the listeners into a place that’s suspended between dream and reality.”
“What we’re doing with Buñuel is to carve out a very specific glimpse… partly into hearts of darkness, but more specifically into the depth of our secrets,” says Eugene. “Secrets we keep from each other, ourselves and whatever futures we’ve imagined for ourselves. We are ultimately trying to communicate something direct and deadly about the human condition.”
Buñuel makes music for those of us willing to take a closer, unflinching look at the depths of human instinct, and on Mansuetude the band extend their reach farther than before, creating an album that is akin to a powerful impulse, or perhaps even an exorcism.
Photo credit – Annapaola Martin