Hailing from Busan, South Korea, baan’s new album Neumann is entirely devoted to the power of fuzz. Overwhelming, physical fuzz. Across an hour-long sprawl, they construct a monolith of noise that nods to shoegaze, sludge, post-hardcore, early 2000s emo, groove metal and grunge, capturing a very specific feeling and riding it for dear life. Dinosaur Jr’s blown-out looseness, Sonic Youth’s swirl, and the rumble of Deftones or Hum. The drums swing, the cymbals crash like waves, and the bass is thick enough to drown in. The riffs are front and centre, and they just keep coming.

The vocals are buried deep in the mix. Sometimes you get a shouted rant, sometimes gang vocals, but never a clear line, recalling My Bloody Valentine or even Cocteau Twins but with far more angst - a kind of screamo-influenced shoegaze with zero polish, all heart. You feel the passion in your chest, and despite the wall of sound, the album has a warmth that makes it feel welcoming, with a homemade, analogue feel. This clearly wasn’t recorded to a click, and that’s part of its magic. The looseness and natural lurches and spills are thrilling. You can picture them charging around a tiny stage, amps screaming, and through it all, there’s a serenity to the chaos. They’ve taken the most cathartic parts of other bands discographies - the mid-section meltdowns and outros that dissolve into feedback - and said, “this is the song.” Instead of building toward those moments, they start with them. This is emo played in the format of a stoner jam band, and each track touches on so many strands of heavy guitar music that have meant the world to teenagers and outsiders for decades. If you’ve ever taken solace in Taking Back Sunday, Deftones, or My Bloody Valentine, this record gives you what you wanted from those moments and then just keeps going.