Bite The Boxer is the project of Dorset producer Matt Park, a guy who clearly sits in his studio asking, “How far can I wreck this sound and still have it be music?” Since 2020 he’s been building this dark, half-film-score, half-industrial world, pulling from trip-hop, post rock, neo-classical, IDM, even a bit of punk attitude. He’s already had radio play and even opened for Fat Dog, but this album feels like the clearest version of what he’s been aiming at.
Haunted Remains Pt. 2 is mostly instrumental and built like a walk through some ruined future. “YoY” sets the tone right away, slow tempo, bass and kick hitting too hard on purpose, guitar scorched to the edge, all of it sitting in that sad-but-menacing zone. “Fearful Hope” tightens things up with synth stabs and big drums, the kind of track that could sit under a tense scene without getting in the way. “Venom Test” starts gentle, almost polite, then snaps into a wall of distortion, like he wanted to prove he could make the guitar cry and snarl in the same minute.
He keeps finding different shades of bleak. “Rituals” is the most “song” on here, with churchy female voices over horror-movie drums, Silent Hill energy. “Hive Mind” moves from lonely piano to spoken voice and thriller percussion. “Ender Times” is the one that feels most like scoring, voices drifting in, piano arriving late, instruments appearing and fading like signals. By the time you get to “Reborn Under The Air,” where guitar and plucked synths finally ease the tension a bit, you realise he planned the arc.
What holds the record together is that push he talked about, making pretty sounds ugly, then pulling back again. It never collapses into noise, it just lives right on the edge of it. This is ready-made for sync in horror, post-apocalyptic, game trailers, anything that needs weight without a singer telling you what to feel.
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