The Barbarians of California - 'MEGATONS' Album Review

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Tracklist:

1. BACK TO THE VALLEY

2. THE GNARLYCORE CLASS

3. VANILLA LATTE

4. BOMB TO A KNIFE FIGHT

5. REALLY REALLY RAD

6. MEGATONS SEGUE

7. EARTHQUAKE

8. THIS IS SHREDICAL

9. HIDE ALL YOUR RECORDS SEGUE

10. MODERN FASHION

11. SHARK OUT OF WATER

12. I AM THE SUBMARINE

Aaron Bruno of AWOLNATION's hardcore project The Barbarians of California are back with their second record 'MEGATONS', released 21st August via Many Hats Endeavours.

I first fell across this band at the top of the year, and quickly fell in love with their first record, 2024's 'And Now I'm Just Gnashing My Teeth'. Their brand of weird, comical hardcore really spoke to me, and 'MEGATONS' is certainly no different. In fact, it may even surpass the previous effort.

The band somehow leans further into the heaviness, exploding out of the gates with 'BACK TO THE VALLEY', really sinking their teeth into the aggression which continues throughout the record, living up to the name of the album in impressive fashion. It truly feels like a musical bomb has gone off, echoes in the 'MEGATONS SEGUE' in which it is said "We represent a massive, city levelling blast".

They also lean further into their weird nature, especially on tracks like 'VANILLA LATTE'. Its comical in the way that Bruno screams the phrase "People are drinking vanilla lattes" with the fervour that many of his peers would use to vent frustrations about the political state of the world, but it never comes across as disingenuous.

Then there's cuts like 'REALLY REALLY RAD', which maintain that comical element (see the lyric "All I wanted was a gift bag from the party), but then have a dancey, electronic outro, completely shedding the aggression featured thus far. This sudden genre shift happens again later on with 'SHARK OUT OF WATER', a surprisingly haunting acoustic track that completely took me by surprise.

I had extremely high expectations for 'MEGATONS', and I am happy to say that The Barbarians haven't fallen into a sophomore slump, expanding on everything they accomplished with 'And Now I'm Just Gnashing My Teeth' in spectacular fashion, building more and more momentum as they go. I can't wait to see where they go after this.