Oxbow vocalist Eugene S. Robinson recently announced that he was leaving the band that he founded 35 years ago, and then his former bandmate Niko Wenner said the band “no longer exists,” following an unspecified allegation made against Wenner during their recent European tour. Now, Eugene S. Robinson has announced a new album by another band he’s led since 2016, Buñuel. Buñuel finds Eugene joined by a trio of Italian musicians, guitarist Xabier Iriondo (Afterhours, A Short Apnea), bassist Andrea Lombardini (The Framers) and drummer Franz Valente (Il Teatro Delgiorrori), and new album Mansuetude (their fourth) features guest appearances from Jacob Bannon (Converge), Duane Denison (The Jesus Lizard, Tomahawk), Megan Osztrosits (Couch Slut), cellist Andrea Beninati, and alto saxophonist/vocalist David Binney. It was produced by Netherlands leader Timo Ellis.
Oxbow is already sorely missed, but judging by lead single “Drug Burn,” Eugene is definitely not done making sludgy, noisy, angular post-hardcore chaos. It’s a rager and you can hear it below. Here’s what Eugene has to say about this new album:
If you need to go, go big, and there, in our minds, was no bigger than the film director widely held to be one of the greatest filmmakers of all time. From the profane to the bitingly clever, Buñuel matched the spirit and dour wit that most matched what we wanted to say musically. To name the band Hitchcock might have been funnier, but we’ll leave “funnier” for people who find the lives we lead and the certain deaths that they lead to, well, funny.
And going through Buñuel the band’s initial trilogy – A Resting Place for Strangers, The Easy Way Out, and Killers Like Us – it’s clear that musically this is the land of no compromise, and very little retreat. Moreover moving out a trilogy lots of questions needed to be asked, usually all about the necessity/need for another record. It’s probably our good fortune that the record Mansuetude, coming to us in a dream as it was, continues with the Buñuelian darkscapes of failure, and fixed revenge. Really iD based horror.
Even with all of that, surprises abound because there are secrets I keep from you, secrets we keep together and the third category of them which have everything to do with the unexpected. In this instance the counterbalancing weight of the implosion of Oxbow. People had always asked what the difference was between the two bands and I have to say I always thought of it in Freudian terms. Oxbow being the superego and Buñuel being the iD.
And the heat and light kicked off by the iD, or a certain chaos incarnate, can both blind and illuminate. In the case of Mansuetude, with its…well, no other word comes in handy here: beauty.
As usual, the standard structure applies: you may not like/enjoy it, but not everyone likes or enjoys touches of the divine. Or put another way, when was the last time you saw a movie by Buñuel, even knowing how big of a genius he is?
Yeah: exactly.
A final and more pressing point for me is that all of the crazy I feel and embody in every moment both good and bad is here. Which is, really, both good and bad. I think it’ll make more sense when you see us live. If you live long enough to be able to do so.
Listen to the new song and check out the artwork and tracklist below. Mansuetude comes out October 25 via SKiN GRAFT Records and Overdrive Records. Pre-order it here.
Tracklist
1. Who Missed Me
2. Drug Burn
3. Class
4. Movement No. 201
5. Bleat (feat. Jacob Bannon)
6. A Killing on the beach
7. Leather Bar (feat. Andrea Beninati)
8. High. Speed. Chase
9. American Steel (feat. Duane Denison)
10. Fixer (feat. Megan Osztrosits)
11. Trash (feat. David Binney)
12. Pimp
13. A Room In Berlin