Cara Neir and Wildspeaker are both wonderfully weird and deliciously crusty bands from Texas who love the heavy stuff and unleash some of the most disgusting, and strangely transcendent sounds that you will hear all year. Both bands here revel in their own filth and have managed to conjure up the sort of internal darkness and bitter realities that so many of their peers would rather just ignore. Sure, neither band is perfect and both are still working on growing their respective sounds, but that doesn't change the fact that they understand the foundational beauty of their genres. Guilt And His Reflection is one of those splits that represents a coming together of two bands that have the potential to be shining stars. They both remain chaotic and unforgiving and though their sounds are only just barely compatible they both remain a part of that same wonderfully weird "thing" that has captured all of our imaginations and keeps us coming back, a slave to our own morbid curiosity.
Cara Neir kick off the split with seven tracks of their unique brand of strangely proggy crust punk. The bass lines that define this two piece are stunning, and their general approach to the genre is utterly unique. While at times this can make the band difficult and unapproachable, at others it makes you curious to really peel back the surface and understand what they have created. They have a unique songwriting style and one that makes you delve deeper into strange worlds. It stands for so much more and hints at a reality which few of their peers could dare embrace.
Wildspeaker for their part unleash something that is a little bit more traditional and expresses a different kind of fury. I'm in love with the band's sense of riff-filled mastery and the tortured screams that define their music. Like Cara Neir they could do with a bit more refining, but in many ways it is the lack of polish that makes them so appealing to me. Despite this, there is still something charmingly delicate about their approach to music. It hints that, despite all the twisted darkness and madness of the band, they have a soft and intellectual interior.
What brings these bands together is a mutual sense of underground mastery. This is the music of basements in shitty neighborhoods and the sound of lo fi speakers blaring out of a depressed teenager's bedroom. There is a very real anger and sense of torment behind this music: it shows us a window into something far more bleak and unfortunate than we could ever truly realize. It gives us a chance to reflect upon the internal blackness, the void that defines Guilt And His Reflection and then turns around and makes us enjoy it. Cara Neir and Wildspeaker come from a different time and stand as proud servants to a genre that has saved all of us. The beauty of having a pair of bands like this, who are at once so different and so similar, is that you can really sink your teeth into both sides and come out with a clear favorite. I won't tell you which one mine is, but I will tell you this: splits like these are why punk will never die.
Score: 7/10
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