Pollutant Portland pack RABBITS prepare to pitch pellets at the European people as a preemptive pounce previous to their petulant split platter with pals Arabrot placates the populous.
Norway’s intangible, ever-changing, and ever-strange noiseniks ÅRABROT (whose album Solar Anus won the 2011 Spellemannprisen for Norway’s best metal record) meets Portland’s sludge-punk kings RABBITS (whose snarling 2012 album Bite Rites made many a year-end list). As if twins separated at birth with a psychic connection that spans a continent and ocean, both acts have mired themselves in the most base elements of rock and rebuilt these primitive pieces into music of violent, raw beauty. ÅRABROT‘s “Blood On Bunny” (no dig at their split partners, they swear) is part industrial, part noise-rock, part sludge and all disturbing, while RABBITS‘s “Yr In Luck” shifts between swinging, rolling, droning versus to grinding choruses, interspersed and ending with a pummeling dirge; like two fucked-up sides of the same shitty coin. The split will be pressed on mega-heavy 70-gram wax — a split release with Rabbits’ label Eolian Empire and Arabrot’s Norwegian label Fysisk Format — and the first of a series of split-release/split 7″ releases between Rabbits/Eolian and their friends from other cities/labels.
In addition, RABBITS will drop their debut album Lower Forms in a deluxe vinyl repress through Eolian Empire, licensed from Relapse. The loved/loathed debut LP from the band was initially released by Relapse in February 2011 and quickly sold out on vinyl; the repress will see a thicker 180-gram delivery. The full goddamn Lower Forms LP is now streaming at the Eolian Empire Bandcamp.
Both records will be available in person on the RABBITS/ÅRABROT Euro tour, but if you live within the continent’s boundaries, preorders for both the repress of Lower Forms and the new split 7″ are available through Eolian ahead of their release on May 28th.
Although the members of the triad toured Europe years ago — then as part of Pleasure Forever and The VSS who toured there on a multitude of occasions — this is RABBITS‘ first international tour… and they plan on bringing the pain in full-force with this virgin contamination of the lands with their ÅRABROT co-instigators.
RABBITS European Tour w/ Arabrot:
5/07/2013 Inkonst – Malmo, Sweden
5/08/2013 Hafenklang – Hamburg, Germany
5/09/2013 Hühnermanhattan – Halle, Germany
5/10/2013 Divadlo Pod Lampou – Plzen, Czech Republic
5/11/2013 Broumov – Czech Republic
5/12/2013 Klub Ä.4 – Hradec Králové, Czech Republic
5/14/2013 Cafe Schlauthaus – Dornbirn, Austria
5/15/2013 Pekarna – Maribor, Slovenia
5/16/2013 Menza Pri Koritu – Ljubjanna, Slovenia
5/17/2013 Obluda – Bratislava, Slovakia
5/18/2013 Boro – Brno, Czech Republic
5/19/2013 007 – Praha, Czech Republic
5/20/2013 TBA – Germany
5/21/2013 TBA – Germany
5/22/2013 Magasin 4 – Brussels, Belgium
“There will still probably be a huge contingent of extreme music listeners to whom Rabbits, with their twin-guitar assault and no bass player, essentially sound like ‘diet’ sludgecore; or like ‘cvlt’ Scandinavian black metal minus the black metal (and Scandinavia); or like EyeHateGod, Burning Witch, and even Sleep with all their doom boiled out of them, to put it a few different ways (take your pick). So perhaps the only folks who will fully appreciate the Rabbits aesthetic are those capable of brushing these odd first impressions aside and focusing on the rather inventively reconfigured musical components found within. In time, one could see this making a lot more sense, as with all groundbreaking endeavors.” – All Music Guide
http://arabrot.com
http://rabbitusmaximus.com
http://eolianempire.com
http://www.fysiskformat.no
http://goods.eolianempire.com