we all love French skram. so this is a split between no less than two(!) French skram bands. and from the crushing intro by After Taste to Kazan’s equally crushing outro, this is a real treat. and this is two rather different bands as well. After Taste are a highly atmospheric and progressive band with epic overtones. they create this tense and melancholic mood, yet they sound very big and pounding. lots of cymbals, heh. at times you feel like you are listening to a Bal-Sagoth of screamo or something. they even crash into full-blown metal parts. weeeee. I really like this band. they are incredibly diverse. one minute it’s acoustic, one minute it’s loud screamo with medieval undertones and then one minute it’s just crushing epic prog with heavy use of cymba. a pretty amazing band, to do the exact opposite of exaggerate. downbeat, upbeat, all-over-the-place-beat – whatever. this band masters it all. and it’s a privelige to be able to listen to this fantastic work. so you should DEFINITELY listen to it. a fucking perfect band. but this split does not consist of only two bands. there are two bands. two rather different bands as well. Kazan might sound similar at first. the first minute of their first track is pretty hands on French screamo. and though After Taste are an incredibly diverse band, you can always tell that it’s French screamo. and Kazan has that recognizable sound as well… for the first minute. then they go into a beautiful and soft folky part, that eventually progress into a metalcore-esque bit that could just as well had palm muting (it already has double bass pedals so), that climaxes into an epic screamo part, before it goes into the metalcore-esque part again, with some medieval undertones – like After Taste occasionaly has. it makes me want to play Warcraft II. simply amazing stuff. if only two bands in the world should have done a split, these two bands might very well be those two bands. whilst being different, they are both equally diverse and original. two such atmospheric bands are hard to come across. especially on the same record – making this a must have!