There’s a weight to displacement that lingers in the bones. Not just the physical kind—leaving one place for another—but the internal exile, the fracture of belonging, the push and pull between escape and return. Dena’s third album, Anabasa, sits in that tension. The title itself, meaning disorder or chaos in Basque, is a nod to the spaces we carve out for ourselves, the ones taken from us, and those that remain after everything else collapses.
Hailing from Ondarroa, a small port town in the Basque Country, Dena has always been deeply rooted in their surroundings—geographically, politically, and musically.
Their sound is a collision of post-hardcore, screamo, and punk, balancing between melody and raw catharsis, the one we cherished so much in their fellow Spanish acts like Viva Belgrado, or French maestros Sed Non Satiata.
Lyrically, they’ve never strayed far from the themes of struggle, identity, and resistance, delivered entirely in Basque, reinforcing both their cultural heritage and their refusal to compromise.
After their 2020 debut, Ezer Sentitzeko, and the follow-up Zure Mugadun Hutsune, the band spent a year touring their homeland, including a set at Resurrection Fest 2022. A break followed, a silence stretching nearly a year and a half, before their return in 2024. Three shows, new songs, a renewed sense of purpose. And now, Anabasa.
Recorded with Karlos Osinaga (Lisabö) at Bonberenea, an occupied, self-managed space in Tolosa, the album is steeped in that same sense of defiance. Edited as a 12” vinyl through Bonberenea Ekintzak and betepaeta—a collective of independent Basque bands—the release stays true to Dena’s DIY backbone.
The lineup this time included Unai Aretxabaleta Zelaia on bass, Beñat Eizagirre Artetxe handling guitar, vocals, and lyrics, and Xabat Ituarte Bengoetxea on drums. Leire Olariaga (Ithaka) contributes additional vocals on “Lur Azpitik.” After recording, Beñat Bidegain stepped in as bassist.
The cover art, a brutalist shot of the concrete port in Ondarroa, mirrors the album’s themes—static, gray structures against an ever-shifting world. The vinyl packaging allows for two covers, a physical representation of duality, movement, and place.
At its core, Anabasa is about geography—real and abstract. The spaces we occupy, the ones we leave behind, and the ones we try to reclaim. It’s a document of movement, self-exile, and forced change, laced with personal and political undertones.
Dena’s roots run deep in the Basque underground, a scene built on self-managed spaces known as gaztetxes. Every town has one—occupied, youth-run, and a lifeline for independent culture. These spaces, along with collectives like Oztoporik Ez, Lege Berria, and Hil da Laboa, sustain an alternative to the industry’s exploitative structures.
“Youth movements are the ones that manage these spaces, and they are usually occupied spaces or spaces owned by the city council. They have played a crucial role as cultural and social epicenters, offering venues for concerts, workshops and community activities. Historically, many concerts have been held in them to raise money for the popular movement, and they have also been necessary to create the Basque Radical Rock movement. ” – says the band.
Bonberenea Ekintzak, Esan Ozenki, and BideHuts have paved the way, fostering bands like Inoren Ero Ni, Lisabö, and Anari. Now, a generational shift is taking place, with bands like Vibora, Zikin, Meison, and Rodeo carrying the ethos forward.
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But it’s getting harder. Restrictions tighten, spaces shrink. The fight to sustain these autonomous spaces is ongoing, mirroring the themes of Anabasa—a struggle for place, an insistence on existence.
“Collectives such as “Oztoporik ez”, “Lege berria”, “Balio dute”, “Hil da Laboa”, “Egun motelak” and “betepaeta” are committed to other ways of doing things that are more fair, equitable and sustainable.”
In the end, Anabasa is a refusal to stay still. A document of movement, resistance, and the spaces we call home—even when they no longer feel like home at all.
Track by Track:
Nor bere lekuan (Each one in their place)
In this song and like the rest of the album, we wanted to transmit the maximum possible with the minimum (guitar, bass, drums, voice), for this we wanted to give each instrument its space, appearing and disappearing, it is a thing that Borrokan does a lot. It is a chronicle of a leaving, an opening that begins by listing the things that are a sign of the passage of time, like catching up with the listener, making references to our previous albums. We liked the idea of talking about leaving or changing places in a world where everyone occupies a role or place.
Les Vitres (The Glasses)
It’s a very direct and melodic song, it’s the one that strays furthest from the album’s imagery in terms of lyrics, I think because it’s the oldest song this was the first song we wrote for the album, just when we finished the previous album. Regarding the lyrics, it talks about the need for the collective to develop individually. We chose the title when we already had all the songs, and we wanted to create a contrast with the materials, glass versus concrete, a bit representing the fragility within us.
Hondakinen bat (Some Waste)
We wrote the first three songs as one after the other, and we gave a lot of importance to the transitions between them, that’s why this song starts with the last chord that was missing to conclude the previous one. It’s the first song we’ve made that started with the bass line. The lyrics and the instrumental go hand in hand, the song has like two halves, two different versions with the same structure talking about a collapse, one that is more raw and the second speaks more from experience and acceptance. Has a lot of La Dispute.
Basa (Mud)
We had been wanting to make a very direct song for quite some time. A song in which so many things happen in a very short time. This song talks about someone else’s pain, about someone else’s place. A song that conveys that rage to defend that emotions and sorrow are political, and each and every one of them has names and surnames, the mud that no one dares to move. This song is going to be very cool live.
Continued below…
Lur azpitik (From under the surface)
At first we thought that “Lur azpitik” and “Basa” would be a lyrical succession and that it would go deeper into the idea that emotions and sorrow are political, but it ended up being something else. It talks about the relationship we have with our place on the scene, about how we feel in the Basque music scene. It comes a bit from the reflection that we are on the stage because we occupy the place of others, on having a place (privilege) in the scene, and that we would like the scene to be more horizontal. Leire from Ithaka was in the studio with us for a couple of days and just when we finished the vocals and we were going home, Karlos thought that Leire could add some vocals at the end of the song. Now that I think about it, it makes perfect sense. It ended up being a very Sonic Youth part.
Square des Recollets
In March 2023, I (Beñat) was in Paris with some friends, and the protests against the reforms happened right there. All of France was on fire, and we were having a few beers by the river. It seemed like a very powerful image to talk about a situation in which you find calm in the middle of the storm. It was one of those moments where you say we’re here forever.
Atako bandan (A ship departing)
It is a description of a scene. We like when songs describe places or situations so they speak for themselves, without having to express feelings directly. We wanted to try this out, that the description of a scene would suggest the emotions that the characters experience in it. It talks about love and the different forms it takes, from a different perspective that we had never sung about before. Musically, we use very open chords, with a way of playing quite similar to Baton Rouge and with a fairly linear structure. On albums we like to put or use the same figures in different songs, for example in this song there is a melody that is used in the song “Lur Azpitik”, and the bass line of “Aterperik ez” is the same as in “Hondakinen bat”. For us these things help to round out the album.
Beste egun gris batez (On another gray day)
We would say that this is the most special song we have done so far, and the one we enjoyed playing the most. It is a song in which the lyrics and the music came out at the same time, giving a lot of importance to the dynamism when the lyrics suggest it. The lyrics sum up the album’s aesthetics well. It is a chronicle of a walk in the port and a count of what was seen there. Raw concrete and the landscape that takes place within it represent today’s society. On the other hand, the port is symbolically a signifier of all escapes and exiles. A stable place, full of ephemeral events and people.
Aterperik ez (No shelter)
It’s a song with a bass loop, and we added feedback and ambient sounds. But the most important thing is the bass and the voice. This song talks about hope, about how amidst so much chaos (rise of fascism, violation of rights, racism…) there are people who do not give up. And that in places where there is no roof, they build one, so that the rest of us can continue to believe.
Leku berean (In the same place)
As subjects we have always been given the role of being strong, of not expressing feelings, of not asking for help and when you get it, of not receiving it. It talks about that, about realizing that you had to let yourself be helped, and that you couldn’t handle everything on your own. We didn’t want it to have a very destructive tone, we didn’t want it to be a cliché song, so we decided to change the perspective and sing in the second person, appealing to oneself. In this way we could distance ourselves from the story and tell it from another perspective. Musically, we thought it would be cool to end the album with an energetic song, and to conclude with a wall of shoegaze guitars on a bass that holds on the same note.
