We Are Rabbits - WAR

We Are Rabbits is a brand new act and one that combines industrial, noise, gabber, and techno all into one mix. They describe their creations as a "cartoon pastiche of terror thrash trash to punch walls to." Their debut EP "WAR" has just released and I can only imagine that it is an acronym for the artist's name. Thankfully, however, I did not find myself punching walls while listening to this EP; I don't think that my wife would have appreciated that too much. What I do get out of We Are Rabbits' debut EP, though, is a solid attempt at mixing the above genres while never fulfilling a level of quality I expect from music. 



The intro to the EP is the title track, 'WAR'. 'Tis is a cinematic sounding song that doesn't really give a hint into what one would be experiencing next on the EP; it's filled with clean synth lines and a backing bassline. Honestly, if I listened to this alone without a hint or a clue about the project, I would think it would be leading me into a synthwave album. Instead, I was thrust right into the machine-gun beats of 'Painless'. Perhaps because of the noise influence on the album, I felt as if the mixing felt a bit flat; while the bass hit me at a million-miles an hour, the rest of the effects on the track didn't pop up to me that much. Through my headphones, it felt as if I was mainly listening to someone jam on a button. There were certain parts of the track that addressed that issue, mainly at the one-minute and thirty-eight second mark where these awesome military-like drums come in. But, beyond that, I didn't get much out of it. 

The following track, 'Painless', did a much better job at allowing some of the beats to flow through. However, I felt as if some of the sounds in the song, such as the clapping like effects present during the intro and throughout its duration, felt very stock. The last song on the album, 'The Wrong Guy', is a mish-mash of gabber and trance. The beats on the song, however, feel very washed out; I'm not sure if this is due to the amount of layers placed within the song, or, again, just the noise influence. Either way, it was hard for me to hear anything really stand out on the track. 

I feel as if We Are Rabbits are onto something here, but production needs to step up a notch. While the gabber influence is the most notable element on their debut EP, the noise washes out a lot of effects on the album. At times, it seems as if We Are Rabbits puts too many effects into one song at the same time without knowing how to balance it all out. If they can get a proper mix that allows all the sounds to live together in harmony, then I believe We Are Rabbits will do great things. However, as of right now, "WAR" is a miss for me. Five-and-a-half out of ten. 

This review was commissioned through our Ko-fi page.
Sep 16 2021