The filth, the fury, the fun… BARRABUS
SOUNDS LIKE:
A panic attack in a collapsing building
FOR FANS OF:
Dead Cross, Napalm Death, Whores
LISTEN TO:
Porn INFUSED WITH VENOMOUS humour and frothing with righteous rage, Barrabus feel like a band that could only exist this decade: an eclectic head-on collision of punk, hardcore and noise fused into a heap of screaming, twisted metal. And yet, they are a band displaced in time, formed a decade ago by maverick purveyor of noise Paul Catten and resurrected in 2017 to offend the sensibilities of everybody in earshot. Barrabus aren’t just more fodder for the nostalgia circuit, however; formed as a side-project for punishingly heavy metal troupe Murder One, Barrabus never actually managed to put out a recording of their own, instead landing tours alongside the likes of Skindred, My Ruin and Sikth before fizzling out as other projects took hold. But, as vocalist Paul puts it, “Sometimes the strangest of events can bring you back together.”
Possessing a backstory like a horror movie, Barrabus owe their reanimation to the unearthing of a past artefact – but in this case it wasn’t so much the Necronomicon as a homemade recording of a past rehearsal.
“We couldn’t make head nor tails of it,” says Paul. “I had to take on a bunch of different personas because I couldn’t understand half the songs.”
The end result is a schizophrenic Frankenstein creation, the band spitting lightning bolts on every single song as they delve into topics as diverse as reality TV, pornography addiction and being an outcast.
A DECADE AWAY hasn’t dulled the reflexes of Barrabus at all – if anything, the time has just cultivated more nervous, excitable energy.
“All our bands have been good live bands, but as you get older you get slower and find that suddenly things don’t quite fit,” explains Paul. “We work hard in the rehearsal room so that the audience don’t come to see a bunch of old blokes tottering around tunelessly.” That doesn’t mean that the band don’t acknowledge their age, however; Paul has been spotted at recent shows wielding a cane menacingly!
“Not everybody gets it,” laughs Paul. “I read one review where the guy said, ‘Maybe he needs it?’ You cheeky fucker!”
Catten and co. are firmly in the driver’s seat of the manic metal menace that is Barrabus, a band very much aware of the roads they’ve taken in the past. “We’re not expecting anybody to shit out the golden egg – we’re here to put out music that’s good and challenging,” explains Paul. “We could have paid a lot of money to a producer to have this record sound like how he hears us, but who wants to take that fuckin’ chance? The more independent bands become, the healthier the scene is as a whole; you’ve got to keep DIY alive or you become a fucking slave.” And as we all know, time waits for no slave.
BARRABUS IS OUT NOW VIA UNDERGROOVE
“WE’RE NOT ExpECTING ANyONE
TO SHIT OuT A GOLDEN EGG”