As Australia gets a head start with the first green shoots of post-(?)pandemic punk, MUNDO PRIMITIVO set it off with some vertigo-inducing bar-setting on this sensational eight track tape. Melissa (of Colombia’s ABUSO) touches down in Sydney and starts this band. It sounds like you getting moshed right out of the fire escape of a Bowls Club in Wollongong and head first into the window of an anarchist squat in Bogotá. And back again!

It’s hardcore, so the inventive riff buffet on offer here tastes a bit like Oli’s previous shred stint in another hands-across-the-Pacific supergroup MORTE LENTA, but the immediacy here is straight outta the New South Wales basement multiverse, which figures as bass is held down by Allie of PHOTOGENIC and MUM infamy, while roiling tom stomps could only be worthy of esteemed local corelord Señor Coyle of ILL BRIGADE. As cocktails go… it’s a strong one, so order a tray for your mates then throw them at a cop.

‘Paisaje Interior’ takes a defiant lyrical stance, asking us who will we decide to be after what we have been through? This is a bold decree to hold ourselves together in grief and rage, to stay very much alive in spite of the best efforts of so many evil forces. “Hoy quiero vivir y gritar la verdad!” If this tape had to be compared to a four band bill we’d book OLHO SECO for mood, LOOK BACK AND LAUGH for speed, SIAL for vibe and …CHAIN OF STRENGTH for cruciality. El Mundo contains multitudes though so there’s even a propulsive RAKTA-esque haunting to close things out.

This wicked fusion dish is a timely reminder of the explosive musical friendships that punks of every stripe cannot help but build whenever we discover each other in the same space or a new place. If that thought alone brings a tear to your bleary eyes, then here’s one to blast as the community puts its arms around our Colombian siblings. (Bryony Beynon)

Our take: Paisaje Interior is the debut release from this new band on Static Shock, one of our favorite labels here at Sorry State. While Mundo Primitivo is based in Australia, their singer is from Colombia and sang for the band Abuso, and to my ears Mundo Primitivo has more in common with the raw and urgent punk that’s been coming out of Colombia for the past several years than the more considered and cosmopolitan Australian hardcore scene. What’s it sound like? Raw fucking hardcore punk with elements from catchier punk and a little goth. The tape starts with an instrumental track whose riff sounds suspiciously like Fucked Up’s song “Generation” (it’s a great fucking riff, why not?) then segues into several tracks of killer, catchy punk. It’s hardcore, but with a sense of drive and bounce rather than an emphasis on heaviness or brutality. The songs feel unique from one another, not just iterating the same ideas and motifs again and again. This culminates on the tape’s last track, “Medium,” which has a spookier, more spacious goth sound that reminds me of Kurraka. The songs are superb and I love the gritty recording, killer artwork, and that there’s a solid 12” EP worth of music here. One of the strongest demos we’ve seen in 2021 so far.