Coming from the prolific Brazilian metal scene built upon the greats like like Sepultura, Krisiun, Violator, or Ratos de Porão, ESCALPO comes as a fresh, newly formed force that pulled together veterans in the South American’s scene to unleash the beast with their first EP “Retrocedendo“, released just a couple of days ago on November 20th.
“We’re friends from a long time and we already play together in other bands, now we decided to form a new band to screaming against all the actual political statements in the world, specially in Brazil, where we have the worst government for the past 40 years”, explains Neri Orleone.
ESCALPO’s lineup consists of Neri Orleone on drums/vocals, Allisson Big Bull on guitar/vocals, Netão Lombada on bass/vocals and Rejão DeNyah on guitar/vocal, veterans from the South American scene with bands like Sick Sick Sinners, Mullet Monster Mafia, Dezakato, Krow, Frenetic Trio, NyahCore, Além da Lenda, among others.
“We already play in bands of different styles on the underground scene, sometimes the political things was not the main theme on the lyrics, but in our actual moment we feel the urgency in shout against the injustices. ESCALPO is the way to put out our opinions, making clear our position against all kinds of social or human prejudices. We grow up inside the punk scene reading fanzines and discussing about political and social questions, fight against the injustices is part of us. We believe in a better world with opportunity for all, and we’re ready to keep fighting for this” explains the drummer.
Their decision to write the songs in native language had political reasons, too. “Definitely we option to write the lyrics in portuguese by the urgency to make our ideas clear in Brazil. Our last 4 years are a fucking nightmare, we saw the country fall down economical and intelectually very fast. Racism, ignorance, homophoby, murders, police violence, all this had a frightening growth. We’re literally going backwards.”
The message behind their work is obviously very important for the band, but their sonic references are also being carefully picked from their roots. Their music blends 80’s metal, dbeat, death metal, punk and hardcore. “Our propose is bring back the raw sonority with hard messages, going straight to the point. We love Discharge, Venom, Anti Cimex, Motörhead and brazilian bands from the 80’s, like Lobotomia, Anthares and another ones… We wanna to mix punk and metal in its essence, raw, loud and intense.”
“Retrocedendo” was recorded in October/2020 at the Casarão Music Studios in Piracicaba/BR by the producer Franco Torrezan and Neri Orleone. The EP marks the first step in the band’s multi-faceted plans for the future. “We’re working on the songs for an entire album that will be released next year. Our plan now is promote the EP intensely and spread the message. We released a lyric video for “Onda de Estupidez” few days ago, and soon we should have videos for the other 2 songs. We’re ready to hit the road in Brazil as soon this pandemic ends, and also looking the possibility to do a European tour in the second half of 2021 ” – concludes the drummer.
