Capra, the Lousiana-based metallic hardcore band, is fit to gore you and distribute your entrails like party favors on their debut LP In Transmission. Capra, of course, is the Latin name for the domesticated goat. A term that was often applied to herders or people who simply lived near goats as well. It's was not a term of endearment. The way this term was used, it is as if depending on a certain creature for one's livelihood, or merely living near one, will cause the properties of that animal to become transitive and rub off on their human caretakers. This often had the effect of providing an excuse for the exclusion of certain people from society due simply to their occupation.
Anyone who has worked as a janitor, or another menial service role, for any length of time, knows how this same discriminatory justification works in a modern industrial society. In the eyes of society, if your job is scrubbing shit off the walls, then you're about as disposable as the sponge in your hands, and not worthy of much more dignity than the excrement you're charged with eliminating. The rage that boils up in someone who finds themselves in this kind of relationship to society could not be captured better than on "Mutt," which begins with the line "Burn it all down!" over a ravaging, incendiary d-beat that scrapes and whirls while as if seeking to ignite indiscriminate fires, like a lawnmower blade sparking as it gnaws at concrete during a drought.
The obvious touchpoints for Capra in both style and themes are Converge and Discharge, exhibiting an earned indigency and all-consuming fury for the society that spurs its members accompanied by rage dizzied grooves and slicing guitars that hit like a chisel between the discs of your spine. There are also times when lead singer Crow Lotus appears to channel Meghan O'Neil of Punch in both lurching cadence and agonizing tone, which gives the music one more layer of unparalleled insurgency.
If you're not sure where to start with In Transmission, skip ahead to "The Locust Preacher" where an unquellable, cyclone of guitar melodies encircle and progressively collapse inwards toward Crow, a force of destruction kept from suffocating her completely only by virtue of her sheer spite, a rage that gives her the will to evade certain doom. The struggle for survival in this new age of barbarism has found its new rallying cry, and it is In Transmission.
Get In Transmission via Metal Blade here.
