Almost every track on Corrupt / فاسد, the latest release from Toronto-based Farsi hardcore punk outfit Siyahkal, sounds like vocalist Kasra is screaming at you with two hands on your shoulders, demanding your attention. Fast, brutal and in-your-face, it might be the most furious hardcore recording of the year."Full Moon" begins with what can only be described as the angriest coughing I've ever heard, like the righteous indignation is making Kasra physically ill. Each track is an autopsy of different outlets of suffering that dissidents, protestors, anarchists and those stricken by poverty in Iran are subjected to, but that are also experienced worldwide. With the tools of oppression sung about on songs like "Anarchy in Iran" and "Time to Hunt" including police brutality and drugs, the enraged screams on the EP are for all people forced to live under the heel of a boot.The band play at a speed conducive to being dragged through the streets tied to the back of a motorcycle, so when the final track "They Decide for Us" rolls around, its thrashy pace almost feels like a doom song in comparison. This heavy, grimy closer is impossible not to headbang to, complete with a traditional Persian vocalization in the background, like heritage and historic beauty are being suffocated and drowned out by our violent modern day.Beauty still manages to peer through the horror on Corrupt / فاسد. In the Bandcamp description of the project, the band explain the challenge that came with writing an EP about your experiences as an Iranian when consent is being actively manufactured for the bombing and invasion of your home country. "We cherish life even if they don't want to let us live it… a sliver of hope that maybe one day we will be free," they wrote.Perhaps it's this perspective that lends itself to Siyahkal's palpably distinct atmosphere and soundscape, setting them apart from contemporaries in the genre. They also have a unique way of presenting subject matter with an almost surreal quality, while the ever-present violence in their music is staged matter-of-factly. The crust and noise-indebted instrumentation follows in the footsteps of the band's previous release, 2025's Days of Smoke and Ash / / روزای دود و خاکستر, but the surrealism isn't quite up to par; unfortunately, there aren't any lines quite as bizarre and dramatic as "Me and my homies riding camels / With whips / In the middle of Tehran streets / With shotguns" ("A Camel and Whip"), or "We'll sing lullabies to their cut off ears" ("Freedom").One of the best demonstrations of the marriage between the surreal and the cruel in the case of Corrupt / فاسد is penultimate track, "Full Moon." After the coughing, it sets the scene of the protagonist having just escaped something brutal on a motorcycle one a rainy night ("The rain just like knife / Cuts through our head and face"). Eventually, the rider falls off the bike, and one of the main themes of the EP is crystallized: "I've become horizontal on the asphalt and only see the moon / It's a full moon and the sky is bright."It's a simple but stark image, amplified by the knowledge that Iranians are living under constant threat of bombing and having to reject the false choice between shah and supreme leader, as well as the isolation facing those who don't want to side with one fascist theocracy over another. For a five-track EP, this is a dense release — and one that feels monumental in its singular ability to furiously speak truth to power.
Wavelength
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