Haan

Photo by Nathaniel Shannon

Initially founded as the quintet No Way in 2012, the group's core trio of guitarist Jordan Melkin, bassist Dave Maffei, and drummer Chris Enriquez (now Andrew Gottlieb) explored a noisy post-punk inspired by the guitar daredevilry of Drive Like Jehu before embracing the crushing riffage of their bludgeon-rock forebears like Unsane and Deadguy. Dirgy psychedelia found its way into the mix as well, and there are even traces of southern-fried swamp rock grooves in their sound —and all of this is buttressed by a spine forged from the heaviest of metal.

Adding singer Chuck Berrett and adopting the name HAAN from a complex Korean term signifying collective feelings of isolation, injustice, melancholy, and insurmountable oppression, they announced their existence to the world in 2014 with the brutal and amazing cassette E.P. "Sing Praises." In a mere four tracks, the band issued a remarkably clear statement of purpose-it's a piledriver of an E.P.; dark, dirty, punishing, but richly complex, sharp-sounding, and utterly riveting. The cassette sold out quickly, but Finland's notorious purveyors of noisy rock, the Kaos Kontrol label, released a vinyl edition that remains in print.

HAAN's new album,"By the Grace of Blood and Guts,"was released in 2018 on Aqualamb Records on gorgeous limited edition smoke vinyl with accompanying 100-page art book. Fans of "Sing Praises" will rejoice to hear that the full-length delivers the same kicks — Maffei and drummer Enriquez deftly manage the twin tasks of battery and fluidity while Melkin punctuates savage riffing with noisy passages that recall the mind-bending guitar needling of Daughters. Berrett channels a range of effective vocal stylings from that recall everything from the brawny expressiveness of Iron Maiden's Paul Di'Anno all the way to the rhythmic incantations of Clutch's Neil Fallon, and his way with a turn of phrase is undeniable as he conjures HAAN's fight songs for the apocalypse.