Taxa
Resurrection Year (Hex)

Local quartet Taxa comes from good stock, having plucked its members from fellow posthardcore unit Damages. Like that act, Taxa is repping a different kind of punk than the Bad Brains– or Black Flag–inspired direction that has steered the genre for over 30 years. Instead, the band’s two-song Resurrection Year 7-inch traces its influences back to the groove-heavy sounds of ’90s legends like Sonic Youth.

A tempest of fuzzed-out bass notes may roll out speedily in the intro to “Kingsway & Fraser”, but a deft mid-tempo drum wallop brings Taxa into its comfort zone. From here, the crew mines the head-nodding rhythms of Quicksand as singer Hieg Khatcherian unfurls ambiguous lines about an accident. “As far as we can tell,” he sings with a sarcastic snarl, “there’s nothing wrong.”

“L’Appel du vide” plays harder, taking cues from the jarring dissonance of Shotmaker and the Jesus Lizard with its eerie and snaking guitar lines, while Khatcherian shreds his vocal cords contemplating his emotional state (“Could I will my heart to stop if there’s nothing left to fake”).

Taxa shares characteristics with the posthardcore crews of yore, and Resurrection Year is passionately bringing those sounds back for us to study.