CLAN DOS MORTOS CICATRIZ
Brazil’s definitive (and only?) nekro-punk band. Hailing from Curitiba, Brazil, the band’s origins can be traced as far back as 2005 when the name was used for a recluse solitary noise/experimental solo endeavor of vocalist Felipe Augusto Soares, primarily influenced by Merzbow and other ambient and experimental acts from the 90’s. This era of the band was mainly slow moving and a far inbetween bedroom project of Soares, leading to an obscure debut demo released in 2005, followed by a split release with Pathétique Poupée in 2011, and a CD-R split with Alkmorhilyion on Glossolalia Records in 2012, though musically the band was still strictly a solo ambient/noise act of Soares throughout all those years and sparse recorded output. The band’s identity changed when Soares teamed up with friend, sound engineer and multi instrumentalist Michael Wilseque. The endeavor with Wilseque was supposed to be a new project entirely, but around the same time as the two teamed up to work on something new, Soares decided to end his solo noise activities to refocus only on the new band with Wilseque, and brought his old noise act’s name with him, thus naming the new band with Wilseque, Clan Dos Mortos Cicatriz. As a duo using Soares’ old noise act’s name, the two musicians began to work with more conventional instrumentation and delve more into a more raw punk/black metal style which was gradually refined into an accomplished hardcore project. A necrotized form of cemeterial punk with a uniquely diseased and pessimistic aura and a minimalistic, yet highly refined songwriting style. Soares’ and Wilseque’s two-man collaboration as a studio-on ly harcore band proved fruitful and a first self-titled debut release surfaced in 2017 as the band’s first ever release under its new punk incarnation. While still underdeveloped and embryonal, this release introduced the sound that would define the band thereafter: an agonizing and demented form of raw punk and minimalistic black metal influenced by bands like Black Flag, Misfits, G.I.S.M., The Stalin, Void, Christian Death, Rudimentary Peni, and Hellhammer, with Soares’ unique lamented and anguished vocals adding a peculiar vibe to the songs. With the band’s music morphing into a more defined and approachable style, the desire and need for a live lineup arose, which soon led to bassist and drummer Ênio and Weliton joining the band to complete the band’s lineup and creating optimal conditions for the first live gigs in the band’s hometown. The new lineup also began fleshing out more songs for future releases which led to the release of the subsequent "Febril" and "Febres Intermitentes" EPs from 2018 and 2019 respectively, as well as the more recent 2022 "Senil" EP which surfaced after an obligatory COVID pandemic-induced band hiatus. These three short releases proved crucial in the band’s development, reinforcing their multi-member alchemy and completing their current form as a visionary dark hardcore punk band, after years of struggling to “find themselves” as a recluse experimental duo using drum machines and other rudimentary and limited means of self-expression. The three releases showed a marked progression in every direction imaginable: from the songwriting, to the production value (still all handled by the band in a DIY fashion), to Soares’ vocals now becoming as primeval, schizoid and feral as ever. The marked progression from their 2017 debut inspired the band to re-record the self-tilted work with the band’s current new sound, its completed lineup, and Soares’ more developed and personal vocal approach, culminating in a second self-titled release which saw the light also in 2022. This in turn led Clan Dos Mortos Cicatriz to find themselves with a considerable discography of coherent, transformative and imaginative punk songs with a strong sense of uniformity and uniqueness, despite them being mostly digital-only or out of print tape releases split up among several short players. Around this time the band’s “Senil" EP and the re-recorded self-titled MLP came across Sentient Ruin’s desk and an idea instantly struck of having all these highly convergent yet fragmentary punk releases conjoined into one celebratory compilation retrospective to immortalize the band’s newfound identity as one of Brazil’s most promising and exciting hardcore acts. All their purely non-experimental punk tracks from "Febril" , "Febres Intermitentes" , Senil" and their re-recorded debut release were thus handed over to Will Killingsworth of Dead Air Studios in the US to be remastered into the glorious 28-track, 46-minute 12” vinyl anthology compilation “Débil”, released in summer 2024. Meanwhile the band’s quest for unearthing even further sickening and diseased pathways into punk’s darkest and most transcendental realms had not relented, and fifteen more brand new songs were crafted after the “Senil" EP toward the band’s most towering and definitive work yet: their official debut full-length album titled “Técnicas de morte”, released in late 2024 also via Sentient Ruin Laboratories.