siLLy puPPy Perhaps one of the only bands i’ve ever heard from the tiny principality of Monaco, HAH which is short for Hardcore Anal Hydrogen is a strange avant-garde metal band that hasn’t gone down the Gorguts road of atonal dissonance and creepy atmospheric otherworldliness but rather has somewhat adopted the more melodic approaches of Mr Bungle, Secret Chiefs 3, Sigh, Igorrr and even noise bands like Melt Banana.

This band was formed all the way back in 2009 when Martyn Clement (guitar, backing vocals) and Sacha Vanony (vocals, keyboards, flute) honored each other’s divine freakery and discovered a passion for making crazy mind fuck metal. After forming a bonafide band, HAH released two independent releases titled “Fork You : ( ) { : | : & };::” and “Division Zero” before releasing this first label debut THE TALAS OF SATAN on the Apathia label.

Graced by a rather cool album cover art, THE TALAS OF SATAN is a rather cool album as well as it mixes all kinds of metal styles along with various world music and electronica. On this fairly brief yet frenetic expression of metal fusion we hear classic heavy metal, thrash metal, death metal, grindcore and trance metal mixed with Asian ethnic music, breakbeat and digital hardcore. While some bands can be quite sloppy in melding things together, HAH is very talented in how it all fuses together seamlessly.

Personally i’d say this band most reminds me of a more extreme metal oriented Secret Chiefs 3 as the mixing and production job are outstandingly brilliant. The ethnic elements don’t sound the least bit cheesy with real flutes, beautiful tribal percussion and other exotic instruments and as far as the metal goes these guys are the real deal as they nail all the genera perfectly. The death metal is balls to the wall, neoclassical solos erupt from time to time and best of all nothing sounds forced as everything organically unfolds at the proper pace.

While more often than not i’m left cold with these kinds of bands that fail to achieve what sounds good on paper, HAH actually pulls it off and leaves me wanting more! Luckily they have two more albums that come before and two more after so no lack of product. Highly recommended for all those avant-garde metal heads who like things on the melodic side. The ingenuity here is top notch and the satisfaction level is quite high.