From Kristiansand, Norway, Honningbarna (translation: "honey children") know their punk rock from their pop and real-life dramas from fabricated soap operas. So their follow-up to lauded 2011 debut La Alarmane Ga arrives after personal (and personnel) upheaval and an even stronger sense of national identity. Matching the take-no-prisoners efforts of Rage Against the Machine and the neck-pulsing vein throbs of Gallows, there's little subtlety on this uncompromising, non-English-language album. Even the band's one-time USP (a cello-playing lead singer) is played down in favour of sphincter-tightening riffola that rarely broadens out beyond the anthemic and sloganeering. One-dimensional? Perhaps, but there are few bands around these days that channel flare-assisted sonic rioting as solidly as Honningbarna.
honning barna.no