II, by Melissa

II by Melissa, released 24 March 2023 1. Lara 2. Natalie 3. Pantaruxada 4. Richie Rich After firmly staking their ground in the filth-stained corner of punk's sub-underground with their eponymous 2021 EP, NYC movers and shakers Melissa have delivered another blistering slab of gargantuan sounding blackened punk with "II". This time around, an atypical but ingenious emphasis on fidelity has only enhanced the merciless ferocity of their approach, every note dripping with perfectly audible bile, maintaining a putrid rawness and scaling it to absurdly hard-hitting heights. This music functions not only as powerful and punishing listening experience, but in it's presentation, represents an aesthetic expansion of black metal tropes. And with songs as strong as these, they preempt any potential skepticism from elitist or exclusionary cynics. So listen, and be subsumed. Because secrets this good can not be kept for long, and the time to prove your blackened bona-fides is now.