HAAN

THE FULL ALBUM STREAM BELOW IS FOR REVIEW ONLY

HAAN
By the Grace of Blood and Guts (LP)
ALR018 DUE AUG-2018

One great peril in hard rock genre-hopping is that an inept band can simply end up diluting all of its sources of inspiration, which, let's be honest, is what happens more often than not. To synthesize something genuinely exciting, adept musicians need to obliterate the lines between genres rather than merely straddling them.

New York City's HAAN understands this perfectly.

Initially founded as the quintet No Way in 2012, the group's core trio of guitarist Jordan Melkin, bassist Dave Maffei, and drummer Chris Enriquez (now Andrew Gottlieb) explored a noisy post-punk inspired by the guitar daredevilry of Drive Like Jehu before embracing the crushing riffage of their bludgeon-rock forebears like Unsane and Deadguy. Dirgy psychedelia found its way into the mix as well, and there are even traces of southern-fried swamp rock grooves in their sound —and all of this is buttressed by a spine forged from the heaviest of metal.

Adding singer Chuck Berrett and adopting the name HAAN from a complex Korean term signifying collective feelings of isolation, injustice, melancholy, and insurmountable oppression, they announced their existence to the world in 2014 with the brutal and amazing cassette E.P. "Sing Praises." In a mere four tracks, the band issued a remarkably clear statement of purpose-it's a piledriver of an E.P.; dark, dirty, punishing, but richly complex, sharp-sounding, and utterly riveting. The cassette sold out quickly, but Finland's notorious purveyors of noisy rock, the Kaos Kontrol label, released a vinyl edition that remains in print.

HAAN's new album, "By the Grace of Blood and Guts," is due in August on Aqualamb records, a label that's distinguished itself by releasing albums accompanied by 100-page art books, but BTGOBAG will also be released on gorgeous limited edition smoke vinyl. Fans of "Sing Praises" will rejoice to hear that the full-length delivers the same kicks —Maffei and drummer Enriquez deftly manage the twin tasks of battery and fluidity while Melkin punctuates savage riffing with noisy passages that recall the mind-bending guitar needling of Daughters. Berrett channels a range of effective vocal stylings from that recall everything from the brawny expressiveness of Iron Maiden's Paul Di'Anno all the way to the rhythmic incantations of Clutch's Neil Fallon, and his way with a turn of phrase is undeniable as he conjures HAAN's fight songs for the apocalypse.

"By the Grace of Blood and Guts" was engineered at Spaceman Sound in Brooklyn by Tom Tierney & Alex Mead-Fox (A Place to Bury Strangers, Kid Millions), and mastered by Chicago's Carl Saff (Fu Manchu, Child Bite, Unsane). The INTENSE illustrations for the vinyl sleeve and art book were executed by vocalist Berrett.

TRACK LISTING
1. Thy Tongues 3:56
2. Hyena Moan 3:05
3. It Smells Like Gas 2:01
4. Zero Day 7:03
5. The Woke 4:42
6. Hangdog 4:07
7. Diminuendo 3:02
8. Funeral Song 5:52

HAAN:
Chuck Berrett - Vocals
Dave Maffei - Bass
Jordan Melkin - Guitar
Andrew Gottleib - Drums

HAAN will be touring with Finnish noise rockers, Throat this August.

TOUR DATES

With Intercourse (CT)

7/12 - Boston, MA - O'Briens with Aneurysm and Ion
7/13 - Naugatuck, CT - Tazraks with Scalp the Pioneer
7/14 - Trenton, NJ - Millhill Basement with 19DRT and Bionic Monkey

With Throat (Finland)
8/17 - Brooklyn, NY (record release) - Saint Vitus with Netherlands and Couch Slut
8/18 - Philadelphia, PA - The Barbary with Faking and Body Spray
8/19 - Baltimore, MD - Ottobar with Birth (Defects) and Gloop
8/20 - Cleveland, OH - Happy Dog at Euclid Tavern w/ SAP
8/21 - Madison, WI - Art In with Coordinated Suicides and Fire Heads
8/22 - Minneapolis, MN - Hexagon Bar with Tongue Party and Buildings
8/23 - Chicago, IL - The Burlington with War Brides and Salvation
8/24 - Milwaukee, WI - Cactus Club - Triple Eye Festival 3 with Them Teeth, Knaaves and Dead is Dead
8/25 - Detroit, MI - Cellarman's Brewery with Them Teeth and Those Hounds

Inspired by the lack of album art in the age of invisible music, Brooklyn-based record label AQUALAMB publishes 100+ page printed books of artwork and writings as physical accompaniments to its releases. Essentially, each album's art and liner notes (traditionally confined to an LP gatefold, a CD booklet, or the screen of some music-playing device) are reconfigured into an expanded book form. Each book also includes a download code for the music.