Sometimes it takes a while to properly develop on opinion on music. It can take days of mulling and repeated listens to work through all the eccentricities of the sound, take it all in and develop a reasoned opinion. Censura’s ‘The Island’ EP is not this type of music. Here, it should take you no more than four seconds to know if you like it or not.
In these four seconds of opener Boom you will hear Jimmy Trigger’s screamed vocals over synthesisers. If you want to give it more consideration, you can wait twenty seconds until the double bass drums kick in for the machine-gun beat or slightly after when a another scream – this of a more guttural variety – which seems to be “Let’s go fuck the Pope” (although I may be adding to the pantheon on great misheard lyrics here). It’s certainly not music your granny is going to dance to at the family wedding.
This metal EP is rather niche. It’s too heavy for normal main-stream tastes yet the synths used and very produced nature of the music will not appeal to those who are fans of rawer, more thrashy metal. Indeed you only need to look at their self-description – “Electro/Power Metal band with Industrial/Metalcore overtones” – to know that they will not appeal to large swathes of the population.
What they do, however, they do very well. Each of the five tracks on ‘The Island’ are very well constructed and seem to find their natural flows. Nothing ever sounds forced (except the Jimmy Trigger’s strained vocal chords) and there is nothing sounds out of place. Even the Skrillex-like sounds thrown into some of the songs seem to fit. Though the songs sound largely the same – that is, there is never any doubt that it’s Censura you are listening to – they have large scope in their themes. Boom is a protest song for example where We Have to Hurry actually has a lot of emotion about it. All the while, the drums pound and the synths rage.
Overall, ‘The Island’ is a very accomplished recording. In fact, I have few doubts that, if Censura can record a full length album that follows up on the promise shown here, then they will soon be boxing with the heavyweights of their genre. They could well be next band of choice for those kids who hang outside the central. Watch this space.