Sometimes it seems like the only right thing to do is turn up the volume and see if it is possible to dissolve yourself in sound. That’s just about the first and only thing you can do with any music hiding within the beer splattered walls of the hardcore genre. Or is it? After the five songs that make up “Bellow” by Muelas, I began to wonder.
Sure enough, there is a distinct metallic edge to the music of Muelas with mercilessly overdriven guitars and guttural vocals making their presence heard right from the start but this is not actually indicative of a forthcoming full on assault on the ears. Those guttural vocals are less stylistic choices than an effective means of indicating torment and the tempo often shifts to a somewhat subtler presentation, via almost folk singer traditional and even melodramatic routes, thus indicating a pleasing degree of theatricality that makes Muelas seem so much more than a band destined to aim everything they do at the wall with the interplay between guitars and violins providing a meaningful counterpoint whilst still working towards the same end.
There is emotion aplenty in this EP with that square peg in a round whole anger so beloved of any band orbiting planet hardcore always evident yet the Muelas branded special sauce is that they understand that their message can be delivered as effectively by inducing curiosity – the desire to listen again and understand more, if you like - as it can be by the expected means of maximum volume sonic assault.