At the heart of No Comply, the new record from Milan’s noise-rock/hardcore quartet Baratro, is a photograph by Rajab Al Reefi of the Gaza Skate Team. It captures a skater mid-trick, suspended above a flattened landscape : a stark juxtaposition of joy and devastation, defiance and grief. This image doesn’t just adorn the album; it embodies its spirit.
Baratro’s origins trace back to Cox18, Milan’s legendary squat, where guitarist Federico Hartridge (Council of Rats) and bassist Dave Curran (ex-Unsane) first connected. With drummer Luca Antonozzi (Marnero) completing the lineup, the band released the ‘Terms and Conditions’ EP in 2021 via Sangue Dischi Records. The pandemic years fueled their creativity, leading to their debut full-length, ‘The Sweet Smell of Unrest’ (Improved Sequence, 2024). That same year, cellist Matteo Bennici joined, initially as a guest, but his chemistry with the band soon made him a permanent fixture.
‘No Comply’, released in May on Supernatural Cat (the label run by members of Malleus Rock Art Collective and Ufomammut), is the culmination of Baratro’s evolution. Recorded by Fabio Intraina at Trai Studio, the album is a genre-defying collision of hardcore, stoner, doom, noise, and psychedelia – gritty yet groovy, with hooks that linger and a cinematic dread that outlasts the noise. Bennici’s cello deepens the atmosphere, transforming abrasion into something orchestral and devastating. The result aligns Baratro with the legacies of Oxbow, The Jesus Lizard, Swans, Shellac, Tomahawk, Eye Flys, and The Turin Horse.
The album opens with « Dawn », Bennici’s cello introducing an unsettling stillness before the chaos erupts. « Hold Fast » follows with Hartridge’s guitar slicing through like shattered glass, while Antonozzi’s drumming drives forward with the ferocity of The Jesus Lizard at their peak. The lead single, « Pick A Side », is a masterclass in tension—pounding drums, growling bass, and snarling vocals that resolve into an unexpected, almost melodic mantra.
« 120 on 280 » features Eugene S. Robinson (Buñuel, ex-Oxbow), whose performance reveals new layers with each listen. On « Not All There », Curran’s former Unsane bandmate Vince Signorelli adds percussion, thickening the rhythm without disrupting the album’s lean, dangerous edge.
‘No Comply’ was written as the band watched the genocide in Gaza escalate and fascism rise globally. The result isn’t agitprop : Baratro are too nuanced for sloganeering—but a sonic transmutation of collective horror into collective noise. The title itself, a skateboarding term for defying expected mechanics, becomes a manifesto: refusing the normalization of atrocity, refusing despair, refusing complicity through silence. The band personally reached out to Al Reefi, sought his permission, and dedicated the record to the Gaza Skate Team—men who continue to skate despite unimaginable grief. The album honors that dedication in full.
What separates great records from the merely loud is intention : the sense that the fury means something. No Comply delivers this in spades. Baratro have arrived with their most fully realized work: uncompromising, politically charged, and alive with the righteous fury these times demand.
It’s not comfortable listening. It was never meant to be.
The skater in that photograph keeps going. So does this band.
