Capra’s meld of chunky metallic riffs and scratchy punk rock energy has been performed by many over the years, but as long as it remains this energetic and rip-roaringly, scabrously satisfying, you can’t imagine too many people will get bored of hearing that unholy union any time soon.
This Louisiana quartet are without doubt at their best when vocalist Crow Lotus, who is rather confusingly deep in the mix for the majority of the record, is screaming at full volume to compete with the oak-thick guitars of Tyler Harper. He’s the clear and obvious man of the match here with his endless supply of driving and crushing The Bronx-gone-Slayer riffs. Crow’s yelp on the magnificent Paper Tongues sounds perfect with the Cancer Bats-style grooving punk rock stomp her band smother her with.
Minor quibbles with the vocal presence in the mix aside, one of the major pluses of this record is the production, which manages to balance the warts and all, live bleed feel so essential to keeping punk rock exciting with a much-needed sharpness and clarity in those all-important guitar riffs. In Transmission rarely steps away from this blueprint, and it would probably be worth suggesting that Capra at least have that in mind and make a conscious effort to bring the odd new flavour to the table when they come to start work on album number two. But as of right now, and as an opening statement, 11 songs in just over half an hour careers by in their company.
If you are looking for an immediate, instantaneous rush of crushing hardcore adrenaline, then Capra will definitely deliver. If they can build on this then we could have something very special in the making.
