Haut&Court recently release their third album Collapse via No Good To Anyone & Duality Records.Haut&Court are a French death/grindcore/metal band from Strasbourg just North-East of France. They’ve been a band for 10 years now evolving on every recording they put out.
Collapse opens to a classic sludge/doom riff reminiscent of old Death mixed with Pallbearer which caught me slightly off guard as they haven’t really gone down that road before musically, this becomes a running theme through the entire album. Not long after the intro they get right to work with the drummer going right into a traditional blast. The guitars are fuzzy and overly distorted but balanced and sound super familiar like early Entombed. They’re probably using Boss Heavy Metal (HM-2) guitar pedals if we had to guess but it’s that classic Swedish buzzsaw tone which has become iconic on its own.
As the album progresses Haut&Court explore a lot of different jam spaces and ambient areas. The last half of Punks Dead is a wide open drone riff that sounds like a war siren, I only wish it was longer. Not one to keep things predictable they get right back to work in Back Stabbers with the drummer visiting variations of Hyper Blast beats paired with the guitars and bass supplying a variation of melodic overlays with some dissonant progressions interwoven.
Haut&Court have successfully stayed true to their roots of Death/Grindcore all while progressing musically with each other. They introduced some newer musical aspects on Collapse that give the genre a whole new outlook on where Grindcore can progress to. They took a few chances that really shine light on the musicianship of Grindcore musicians, these guys riff plain and simple. Personally, I think this is one of the better Grindcore albums I’ve had the pleasure of listening to.
Haut&Court went a step further and made their album available for free stream on Bandcamp the album is also available on Spotify.
Overal Score- 8.5/10
Review by: George Joseph Bauman IV
