AFTERBIRTH "Robots of death" tape, 2005

For those of you who worried the last's review might somewhat signaled that Terminal Sound Nuisance might descend soon into postpunk refinement, rest assured that things won't go that far although you will be exposed to more postpunk in the future (because, you know, the 2010's and all that). But today we are going back to basics, to the source, to the perpetuation of what has made this blog great for years - or at least a decent and enjoyable read when you are in the bogs (the numbers tell me that this is actually the most sensible place to read about punk) - with a rather obscure recording: Robots of Death by Afterbirth. This thing is not even on Youtube, it's that cool a tape, one you will be able to use in punk trivia and act like an irksome and cocky twat in the process.

This album - as it is clearly an album rather than just a demo tape - was released in 2005, a time when crust was undertaking a transformation, definitely and irremediably leaving the 90's crust shores (beside some diehard and seemingly immortal bands like Visions of War or Profit and Murder) for the shinier, flashier neocrust or stenchcore revival sounds that defined the decade. To me it was a time of excitement, constant discovery, a time when tastes were shaped, formed, deformed, reformed, when your brain can still be considered as young and you are not a jaded bastard whining about Gen Z's (yet). It was a time when people still bought records from new bands before listening to them online, helped in their decision by the usually short description the labels or the bands themselves provided (needless to point out that some of them did lie about the quality of their production, a bit like your uncle Robert when he says he almost made it as a professional football player when he was a lad). These leaps of faith would sometimes result in amazing finds and lifelong love relations with Χειμερία Νάρκη or Coitus but could also end up being sore disappointments. At least surprise was of the essence which is not something that can often be said these days. But anyway, what about Afterbirth? How did they feat in the crust landscape of the mid-00's?

The band was from Edinburgh and the description provided at the time of acquisition it caught my attention for two reasons. First, it said that Afterbirth had members from bands I was familiar with, namely Paul who played in the 90's speed punk band Beergut 100 (mohawk required to get into this one) and the excellent heavy crust punk band Social Insecurity (that I wrote about ages ago here). That did make me feel at least a bit comfortable and "in the know" if not "part of the conspiracy". Second, it said that the band did a cover of Axegrinder, a band that I had gotten into recently and whose influence and legendary status I was starting to understand and grasp. Ironically Afterbirth covered "Grind the enemy", a song I had never heard then because I only knew the excellent '87 live recording they had uploaded on their long defunct website and the Lp that a friend gifted with Soulseek and an internet connection (those conferred a certains status in the 00's) had burnt on a cd for me. Little did I know then that it would remain, to this day, the one Axegrinder song that bands always cover (which stands as a little odd as I would tend to find "Final war" much more interesting to rework, although it does not have a boisterous chorus you can sing along to, which must be taken into consideration when the audience is predictably well pissed). Robots of Death was not Afterbirth's first endavours into the big scary world of punk music as they had recorded a demo in 2003, the songs of which appeared on a split Ep with Filthpact in 2004. As enjoyable as these three songs were, I see this tape as a significantly better offering. 

By the time of the recording of the tape, the band had an international lineup with Polish drummer Artur (previously fin Juliette and then also In Decades Decline), Leos from Czech on the bass guitar along with Paul Social Insecurity on the guitar and Scalezy formerly in the mighty Mortal Terror and Sawn Off on vocals. I remember playing the tape for the first time and thinking that the production was quite unpolished, very direct and somehow unlike the cleaner productions that were becoming quite common then. It probably impacted my perception of Robots of Death and of the band as a whole then and made me think that this lot were more direct and basically punkier than most of the modern crust. Listening to it now, I realize that it's really not that raw but I still find the simplicity and spontaneousness it conveys rather endearing. There are bits where you can hear the distinct 00's crust leads and idiosyncrasies but Afterbirth at that point in time relied more on fast d-beat hardcore punk (the guitar's sound remains rather clear) with dirty metallic crust moments, a bit like a date between Extinction of Mankind, late 90's Hellkrusher and the Final Warning Ep's. The last number "Lead lined coffins" is a top-shelf old-school Misery-like mid-paced metallic crust anthem that you have to listen to if you are into the genre and want to be able to look at yourself in the mirror. 

This is a humble, honest punk album that works on most levels and still stands the test of time. Afterbirth would recruit a second guitar player for the 2007 Lp Your Gods Vomit in Disgust, a decent work very representative of the crust sound of the time but that I thought didn't have the charm of Robots of Death. As mentioned at the beginning it was released on tape on Insane Society and on cdr on Crust Crusade which was the band's own label.

Robots of CRUST

 

 

FUNERAL PARADE "S/t" demo tape, 2013

 (The review was meant to be much shorter but there you go, I couldn't help digressing like a madman.)

Modern postpunk: that thing everyone pretended to love in 2013.

Honestly even a well-respected clairvoyant scholar such as myself could have never predicted the postpunk trend that took the DIY hardcore punk scene by storm in the 2010's (and caused eyeliners sales to increase significantly). But then, did anyone? I still struggle to understand how the phenomena spread so quickly and what artistic or indeed emotional needs - both from the musicians and the audience's point of view - postpunk answered at that point in time. But it undeniably filled a gap.

From my understanding it did not just emerge from a newer generation of punks that tried to offer something different or maybe something that was absent but some older punks also went for it. And, punk being an endless game of referring to the past, it relied on an 80's influence that was different than your usual anarcho/hardcore department: that liminal zone when and where punk went dark and grew a fascination for graveyards, weird shirts and dark eyes, basically the Siouxsie and the Banshees school and all that followed. When what came to be called and understood collectively as "postpunk" (I will get back to this linguistic shift) hit the scene, I must confess that I did not really give a shit about the genre or indeed the term and notion, having grown up very uninterested with it. It therefore brought a new conceptual tool into my punk arsenal as I had to used to point to and define bands that were starting to merge with the DIY hardcore. 

Beside the odd new wave song at parties that I would willfully dance to when sufficiently pissed, I was still scarred by the Blitz incident and rejected anything remotely (mostly terminologically) connected with what I thought of as the inherently evil "postpunk galaxy". Let me digress for a bit. When I was 16 I bought a Blitz double cd called Voice of a Generation - The New Future Years. The first one included the Lp while the other had the singles. Half way through the second cd I noticed some alarming changes on songs like "New age" - that still had a great singalong chorus about "the kids" so that was alright - but when the songs off Telecommunication or Solar kicked in I felt personally betrayed. Despite being 2000 and the boy of Blitz being long cold, I felt cheated by a band who had sold out to new wave (or whatever) that stole and corrupted the band who stopped singing about the "punks on the streets" I identified with. Since that day, I want to punch the people who claim "postpunk Blitz" is as good or even better (that's the ultimate outrage) than the early stuff. They are almost always people who also listen to shoegaze or noiserock, have moustaches and live in nice flats to be fair. They are lucky I am too much of a wimp.

Fast forward 10 laters and there we were, with a new generation of bands actually into postpunk and not just victims of a certain 80's trend when otherwise decent bands were mislead into shamefully going postpunk. Some made it rather safely - I'll admit - while others crashed miserably. At least they did not go shit metal like Discharge did. Hairspray had a lot to answer for in these terrible developments I reckon. To get back to the story, I associated the name "postpunk" with negative things without knowing much about it and had no idea that Siouxsie, New Model Army or Killing Joke could fall under this umbrella. I thought postpunk was either all edgy and intellectual (like Devo or Adam and the Ants) or silly new wave for middle-class people with an unhealthy obsession with their hair and looking straight at the camera. As a result I was absolutely flabbergasted when some fellow punks (who admittedly did not grow up with UK punk at all) started to refer as Lost Cherrees or even The Mob as postpunk. I called the bands I listen to but were a bit darker and moodier "goth-influenced" but the term postpunk wouldn't have come to mind. This shift happened really fast and after years of enduring neocrust and fastcore bands in the 00's it was time for a new global trend that I knew little about. On the one hand, it proved to be a fantastic excuse for moaning and complaining, on the other it did make me dig deeper into a genre I knew very little about. It was at least stimulating.

From my Paris-based experience, I locate the start of the postpunk wave with two gigs: Spectres in April, 2011, and Belgrado and The Estranged in June, 2011. This was a turning point, not just musically (although it was indeed very unlike what I had seen before in DIY hardcore punk gigs), but also because of the personnel involved in these bands, people who had played or were playing in hardcore or crust bands and suddenly opened up to a different style. As taken aback as I was, I still enjoyed the gigs and mostly did until the mid 2010's when every new touring band sounded just like the former. It would be unfair to dismiss this wave on the face of the average bands that joined in opportunistically. The fact some bands have been sticking to it and are still active means that the genre is here to stay. Beside I enjoy even the most average 90's eurocrust band so it would hypocritical for me to judge the mid table 10's postpunk band too harshly. 

While the term postpunk can encompass a very large array of sounds (from Joy Division, Siekiera, New Model Army, Siouxsie, The Cure to Christian Death, Crisis, UK Decay, Paralisis Permanente or Trisomie 21) the core style of the wave, your typical 10's postpunk band, lived in the locality of, I felt, Skeletal Family - themselves not exactly pioneers. It was dark and melancholy but danceable, tuneful and completely metal-free. And you were allowed to look good and take showers as opposed to the previous punk trends which saw such activities as definite signs of gentrification. Until the end of the decade, almost every large towns and countries started to have their very own postpunk bands. But among the first to resurrect postpunk were Funeral Parade from fucking Portland.

Funeral Parade - the tone-setting name comes from Part 1's iconic record obviously - exemplifies what a good 2010's postpunk was supposed to sound like. I suppose the coinage "anarcho goth-punk" would have been more relevant in their case, especially since their sole recording was released in 2010, at the beginning of the trend (it has to be pointed out that Spectres' first Ep came out as early as 2007 which makes this Vancouver band genuine trail blazers of modern Joy Division cosplay) when the term postpunk had not quite dominated and overrun anything that was even vaguely melancholy. Funeral Parade's music stands as a wonderful illustration of the genre that, despite all the hair spray, started out as more PUNK than it was post and therefore made it much more palatable, enjoyable and indeed enjoyed by close-minded me. You have the signature melodic and gloomy guitar leads, that typical dynamic drum beat with a lot of cymbals and a lot of chorus on the bass guitar, all classic 80's goth signifiers. It is a demo so that the production remains raw and very punk-oriented, which suits me just fine. The vocals are angry, halfway between spoken and shouted, very much in the anarchopunk tradition. The songs are mostly catchy and the length (5 songs in 15 minutes) is appropriate for me as I can quickly get bored with the postpunk guitar leads when they are overwhelming. Beside 80's gothpunk influences like the aforementioned Skeletal Family and early Screaming Dead, I can hear a snottier and more traditional UK punk influence like The System or Subhumans and also anarcho bands that incorporated seamlessly postpunk or goth influences (after they can be seen as both) like Part 1 (duh), Lost Cherrees or even Chumba. 

What made Funeral Parade so representative was also that all its members were involved in noisy (if not noizy) hardcore bands like Lebenden Toten, Nerveskade or Ripper at the same time and may have wanted a bit of fresh hair through a more old-school 80's sound that your mum could still vaguely nod to. Two members of Funeral Parade also played in the very goth-oriented (not to mention longer-running and better-known) Bellicose Minds so that something was definitely in the water - and in the hairspray. Funeral Parade did not last long, unfortunately because listening to this 2010 tunes again I realize that it's exactly I want my gothpunk (or postpunk or dark punk or whatever) to sound like. Originally self-released on tape, this is the European version released in 2013 on Voice From Inside, a DIY or Die label then based in Kyiv. It was reissued on vinyl the following year on Mata La Musica Records, a label that put out materials from Bi-Marks, Mundo Muerto or Generacion Suicida in the early/mid 10's.

Did I mention hairspray?   

Funeral Parade

FARCE "S/t" demo tape, 2017

This is somehow a stimulating one to review for Terminal Sound Nuisance as Farce firmly belonged (I assume they are no longer active) to the hardcore scene - X's are optional but felt - rather than the comfy anarcho/crusty one my magnanimous self is used to promote here. At the end of the day it's all punk, innit? So why the need to create divisions? A fair point but then isn't the context as important - if not more in many cases - as the text itself? We often tend to think that context always creates text (or music) which is obviously the intuitive approach but that would be disregarding the performative power of the act of creation that sometimes escapes and gets rid of its creators. It would be far-fetched to claim that Farce's rather humble demo tape reflects such philosophical matters and I guess that what I really want to say is that Farce come from a hardcore background but their music appealed as much to the spiky crew as the athletic one (let's put it that way). 

Were it not for their cover of Doom - "Police bastard" no less than the band's most notorious and iconic song - I do not think I would have paid much attention to Farce, not because I dislike the music a priori, but precisely because the people from Farce are from a different crew and I can be close-minded (like my coworkers like to say when I confess my utter indifference to vocoder music). I make it sound like every subgenres is its own tribe with its council and its code of law that does not really mix with other tribes - be they rival or allies or just totally alien. Actually maybe we do have tribes or factions - it would be the appropriate term - that don't really mix, especially in large cities where you can afford to have this sort of artificial divisions. In smaller towns, everybody just go to "the gig" whatever the genre (beside monstrosities like skacore or shoegaze). It's not as complicated. 

So basically I almost missed this very fine tape because the members of Farce were and are involved in bands like Game, Shrapnel, Arms Race, Violent Reaction or Obstruct - all bands I am not hard or muscular enough to listen to - and because the tape was released on Quality Control HQ, a very hardcore-oriented (in the US sense of the term) label I don't follow closely for its lack of hairy logos. It does not mean that I don't like some of the bands and it certainly doesn't mean that I don't go see them and support them. I did go to the Damage is Done festival last year and although, to be honest, it was for Framtid, seeing groups of grown men doing the two-step dance (Macarenacore?) and waving their arms like dysfunctional helicopters was a right laugh and some of the bands were objectively very good. As I said, different codes of behaviours are attached to specific punk factions, and mine is often more concerned with taking shit speed, nodding drunkenly to an average Discharge clone and discussing the bourgeois habit of taking showers while still Instagramming patches. All much more respectable and very noble habits, right? 

But let's actually get to the tape. So why would both a healthy jumping straight-edge 35 year old hardcore kid and what can only be described as a stumbling human-shaped pair of crust pants love Farce? Because they proudly relied on the classic mid-late 80's UK hardcore sound of bands like Heresy, Electro Hippies or Ripcord and maybe even furious raw hardcore bands like Asocial or G-Anx (without the trippy bits) and whether you worship Siege and early Agnostic Front or Deviated Instinct and Sore Throat we can all be friend and mosh - respectfully and caring for wimps like myself - together. "Let's all be friend! Means to an end!" and all that. The tape has 8 songs in 11 minutes, the production is direct and gives the impression that it was recorded in 1987, the songwriting goes straight to the point, the pace is mostly of the fast and furious variety but you have some mid-paced moments to keep the grindcore crowd away. Just good, solid political hardcore punk. The label logo on this release has been turned into an homage to Icons of Filth's aesthetics, tasteful fan service I am sucker for. The brilliant artwork was done by Nicky Rat who, with his distinct style, has been working with tons of, often successful, bands since then. I wish Farce had had an Ep in them but that was not to be.

This silly writeup is dedicated to Ola - from Farce and Quality Control HQ - for obvious reasons. 

Farce

ΑΤΟΜΙΚΗ ΣΧΑΣΗ "Ακροβάτες Στο Κενό" tape, 2018

I first learnt about the label Extreme Earslaughter in 2017 when I read about a coming discography of Industrial Suicide (or Βιομηχανική Αυτοκτονία as they are known in the non-posing world), that classic Greek band virtually unknown outside of Greece and of the crust elite. Of course, excitement grew exponentially at the Terminal Sound Nuisance headquarter. A very limited run of a tape including rough late 80's recordings from a gruff metallic crust band with a grim name is the equivalent of a holy miracle in these quarters, if not the proof of the existence of God. Further investigations indicated that the man behind this operation was none other than Vagelis from the excellent Παροξυσμός, a band I was already following closely. It basically all made sense. 

Readers of the blog are well aware that Greek crust is definitely my thing and I have written about this localised take on the old-school crust genre - whose unique defining specificities, I would argue, make it an actual subgenre - on numerous occasions and the band Ατομική Σχάση (aka Atomikí Schási meaning Nuclear Fission) gloriously ticks all the boxes. If I were a judge at the Crust Olympics I would give them a 10 for sure. I knew this 90's Athens band before this reissue through the enigmatic Same Old Madness blog (it's been inactive since 2017, sadly) that was bent on archiving all the Greek punk bands that ever existed with absolutely no information about any of the bands beside the names and dates. Needless to say I spent hours exploring that rich but ultimately rather inhospitable place, discovering absolute gems in the process, among which Ατομική Σχάση. That Extreme Earslaughter in 2018 decided to resurrect this 1995 demo, Ακροβάτες Στο Κενό, is a selfless gift to the world. And that's what I love about this label and about this tape: it's what they represent. This humble tape, with only 100 copies made, is a labour of love, passion, dedication, of the immortal DIY spirit in the face of the commodification and the artificialisation of our culture. This tape is the opposite of the online crust pants contests and of bands constantly promoting themselves, it is for the genuine lovers of crust, and I would argue that this applies to Greek crust as a whole itself, it is how you identify the trve kvlt. If I was the bouncer of an exclusive crust nightclub I would ask people who want to get in what their favourite Greek crust band is and if they are unable to answer then it's back to the cheap neocrust club down the road. 

Fortunately I don't have the gatekeeping mentality (and I am far too much of a wimp to be a bouncer, even at a kids party) and Terminal Sound Nuisance is all about sharing and loving so here is your opportunity to show off and feel superior with a delicious if little-known metal crust band. Details about Ατομική Σχάση are scarce to say the least. The band formed in 1993 in Athens, only self-released this demo in 1995, the bass player Haris also played in the first lineup of Ρήγμα (I reviewed the excellent first Lp here) and that's about it I'm afraid. Stylistically, the music is pure old-school crust with that characteristic Greek sound and songwriting. It is very epic with a dark melancholy atmosphere enhanced by keyboards (Greek crusties just love their synth don't they?) very much in line with what Χαοτικό Τέλος. The band blends heavy mid-paced metallic crust like the aforementioned forefathers as well as Axegrinder, Ξεχασμένη Προφητεία or Misery (clearly) but they also tread into faster and thrashier territories reminiscent of Ναυτία, Anti-System or even Hiatus. Apocalyptic synth stenchcrust at its very best. I particularly love the sense of narration and storytelling in this recording with the band taking a genuine breath with an instrumental acoustic song in the middle. You can tell that they really cared about the atmosphere they wanted to create and about the tools they could create it with. The sound is pretty raw compared to today's bands and I guess that with a more polished production this would have easily deserved to be released on Lp at the time but it what it is. I don't mind it at all, if anything it conveys an even more organic vibe.

Fantastic stuff, great label, love music, support the scene and all that.  

THE CRUST

LASTSENTENCE "Solitude" tape Ep, 2017

Alright, I'm back. It would be something of an exaggeration to claim that I'm back "from the dead", although it would certainly make me sound really cool and I'd become the "Phoenix of Crust" which would definitely boost my online popularity and the status of Crustus Immortalis would probably increase engagement on the blog (whatever that means). The closest from the Hades I have been to since the last post was when a pizza delivery guy almost ran me over last week though. So no, I just had things to do - "IRL" as twats say - and lacked time to sit on my arse and write far too enthusiastic words about unlistenable music that few very devoted people love as much as I do. Am I happy to be back? Indeed, old bean, indeed. What I am trying to eventually achieve through Terminal Sound Nuisance is still not quite clear, beside offering something to read instead of a like button and a click culture, but I keep getting back to it anyway. They say that the journey is more important than the destination but then you often find on inspirational posters in people's bathrooms so it is difficult to take seriously. Quixotic I presume.

I won't be doing an actual series for once and will just write about recordings that I like or that I find interesting, the only common attributes being the sacrosanct tape format. The material difference between a demo tape released in 1992 and another one twenty years later is absolutely huge although they are both technically punk tapes. Once the most relevant cheap DIY format, ideal in its very nature for its convenience in order to share and spread your music, has the tape become something of a romantic punk shibboleth, a material tribute to a golden era, the format almost as important as the music, seemingly carrying a message by itself? Still, tapes have remained relatively cheap and you could argue that most people interested in our little niches have always owned, or rather never stopped owning, a tape player anyway so that the contemporary trendiness enjoyed by tapes do not matter that much. It must be different for the people who are too young to have lived in the original era of tapes. How do they see tapes? After all, it was never a relevant format to them, they were born in the mp3 era and I don't see many bands releasing cdr's either.

All this to say that I will be writing about tapes without any real unity of time and place even though I realize that, for all the criticism, I myself have been buying quite a lot of tapes in the past 10 years - more than ever before in fact - so that we will not go too far back in time in general (with delightful exceptions of course). And because I was dying to deal with something completely different to the last series about Japanese crust compilations, the first installment will be... a fucking "Raw-noise mangel attack" from Osaka. I picked it at random and yet I am back right where I stopped. I suppose it says a lot about my tape collection.

Lastsentence (the spelling possibly picked in order to differentiate themselves from the legions of preexisting Last Sentence) can be said to be one of those bands that fans of the subgenre are acquainted with and enjoy to a well balanced, reasonable extent, but that people with a casual liking to Osaka noize will very likely be totally oblivious to. Why bother with Lastsentence when you have Ferocious X? Well, precisely. If you cared to bother with Ferocious X then why not get an extra slice of goodness from the same crew? Think of Lastsentence as the third band of a "3 crasher mangel acts for the price of 2" hardcore punk deal. The band has been going for a while now, made up originally of members from Devastated Goes, Nationstate and Ferocious X (duh) with a first demo released in 2008. The band was a different animal at that time as they had a female singer (Oda from Nationstate) and the music was much more distorted, very close to Ferocious X actually (duh again) as their Beginning of the Closed Mind can attest. By 2011, the sound changed and guitar player Nabe took on vocal duties. Rawer and not as distorted was the guitar and the band focused more on the heritage of Frigöra and early Gloom, the space between them, rather than the "wall of noise" school. It was the right choice because not many bands go for that raw distorted Mob 47 vibe and the energy is contagious when it's done well in a pummeling mangel fashion. 

On this 2017 recording, recorded at the infamous King Cobra Squat, a new guitar played got recruited but the sound recipe remains the same with songs that will fit right with your usual Frigöra-holidaying-in-Osaka morning routine. Lastsentence do well what they set out to, with gusto, and even if they are a humble Osaka "raw-noise mangel attack" and will not shatter the earth crust, it is not, by far, a bad spot to occupy. It is in fact a brilliant tradition to proudly represent. Since 2018 (I think?) the band has had Jacky Framtid on vocals (the drummer Aladdin actually joined Framtid earlier) and he does the job with obvious passion. The Solitude tape Ep was released on Doomed to Extinction Records, a label with more than a passing fondness for Japanese crusty hardcore that I warmly recommend if you like your punk obscure and noizy (the label had released a split between Lastsentence and Tokyo's Voco Protesta two years before that tape). This will appeal of course to the completists but the average Swedish hardcore fan will dig this too.

Solitude

Japanese CRUST (compilations) Against the Millennium (part 4): "Yotsuva - Japanese Noiz Cruster Comp" Lp, 2009

When a kid gets into punk, he or she often makes it very loud and very clear through dodgy hair dye, randomly drawn circled A on still pristine denim jackets, typically shit early attempts at a mohawk or the sudden disappearance of every safety pins in the house. Parents aren't exactly excited and not too chuffed to have to tell your grandparents aka their own parents - rather embarrassingly - that you're "going through a phase" and that they shouldn't pay too much attention when their once adorable grandson or granddaughter now cannot stop ranting about how the final bloodbath is coming and is just around the corner or some shit. Know what I mean? 

When it is indeed a mere phase, you can all laugh about it years later when the former snotty little punk has finally accomplished his or her destiny and become a mediocre accountant in a boring shithole and spawn two horrible children. Mum would be so relieved that you quickly dropped the bondage trousers and the torn Exploited shirts (although nothing could be done about the still half-infected tattoo of an oddly shaped skull that your mate Paul did during a party while on mushrooms) and became presentable and proper enough to be introduced to her own old high-school friends who grew up to be much more successful. When it is not a phase (meaning when you're still rocking the haircut by 25), well, things are more complicated, aren't they? Parents often beat themselves up, convinced that they must have done something terribly wrong and have basically failed dramatically at parenting. If not, why would their beloved offspring wear what can only be kindly described as a bum's rags, play in a dreadful band called The Riot Cunt Boys and stop eating meat. By that point, the grandparents would have already blamed the mother repeatedly (because in a patriarchal society it's always the mothers who take the blame) for the revolting hygiene of their grandkid and the neighbours gossiped relentlessly about the parrot-looking youth living next door who often gets bullied by "real men".

Why such subtle sociological analysis you might ask? Well, have you seen the cover of the Yotsuva compilation 12" Ep? What would the gran say? It has to be the crustiest picture of a human being that you have ever seen. There's so much hair you can't even see the face of that punk and he probably can't see shit either. It looks pretty much like a scarecrow who lost his comb or the hidden punk baby brother of Cousin Itt, the opposite of presentable. And isn't the creature a little scary as well? If I bumped into that crusty punk at midnight in a poorly lit dark street, I would maybe think that Sadako, instead of dicking around in old wells, just got into Deviated Instinct and is on her way to haunt fake punks who like shoegaze and Turnstile. In any case a mere cursory glance at the cover of Yotsuva is enough for even the least discerning of us to understand that it is an unhealthy, unmitigated slice of crust-for-crusties (noise-not) music. To make sure everyone got it the subtitle Japanese Noiz Cruster Comp was added. Just to be safe.

There are only four bands on this compilation (or would it be more accurate to call it a four-way split?) but the lineup is fantastic and I personally see the record as something of a classic Japanese crust record and a highly relevant snapshot of a time period. One of the most chaotic and noisiest bands of a subgenre already based on chaos and noise opens fire first: Tokyo's Isterismo. It did take me a few years before I understood what the hell they were trying to do first and second to genuinely enjoy them. Emphaticalness might be the key word here. Imagine early Gloom and Frigöra teaming up to create a band doing covers of Plasmid and Asylum and then make it noisier, faster, blow it out a bit more and add an obsession for the amusical side of Italian hardcore like London 77 or Fottutissima Pellicceria Elsa. An intentional fucking racket indeed from a band known and sought after precisely for that. Like Tantrum, Isterismo sang in Italian and these three songs belonged to the early years of the band, my favourite era as I always thought the later Lp was rather disappointing. These Tokyo crusties went on to play in bands like Solvent Cobal or Haava. I recommend the compilation Lp Tokyo Crusties (duh) which you can still find for quite cheap if you want your senses to be assaulted by the band's early period.

The humungous Death Dust Extractor grace us next with three horrendous noise cavecrust songs and it sounds exactly like it should. Do you love early Doom and Sore Throat? Have you always thought that Japanese bands Mindsuck or Abraham Cross did a magnificent job revering Doom and Sore Throat? Have you ever wondered what would happen if you threw a bit of Terminal Filth Stenchcore into the mix and a spoonful of unhinged Osaka crasher crust? Well, it's your lucky day and these three songs are tailor made for your sick tastes in music. A pretty unique band indeed.

Lastly are the third band to enter the crust arena and they are possibly the lesser known of the four stenchmen of the apocalypse. They were from Hida-Takayama, in the Gifu prefecture, a region known for its mountains and I wouldn't be surprised if the members of Lastly were all actual feral kids living in the wilderness of these mountains, eating roots, throwing shit at each other and communicating through noises before they learnt how to speak at age 20. In fact they might have learnt how to play crasher crust before the linguistic skills. This is savage relentless noizy crust praying at the altar of Gloom and Collapse Society and must clearly be seen in the same light as Isterismo, D-Clone or Zyanose. Nothing new here, it's all very well done, by the book, but you might argue that Lastly missed that bit of personality that would have helped cement their spot in the Japanese crust pantheon. You could say they were a mid-table crust bands but then the Japanese league was perhaps the best in the world at that time so it is already remarkable. These four songs (one is not listed) were the first appearance of Lastly on record and they pack a serious punch, I actually like them better than their first cruder more noisepunk Ep while the second one was closer to Contrast Attitude. 

Finally the listener is rewarded for his or her persistence with three songs of noise insanity by the mighty Zyanose. Thanks to a serious and globally solid discography Zyanose have definitely become a reference in the Confuse-meets-Gloom-at-a-crust-convention-held-in-a-mental-asylum. It's still pretty much a musical freak show but one that has become more respectable with time. I have written extensively about these Osaka nutters and I don't feel I need to reiterate because, by now, you know what I am talking about.

As a conclusion, Yotsuva (I haven't been able to find where the name comes from so information is welcome) will delight the most monomaniacal of us and if you are looking for variety then I suggest you keep away from it. However if you crave for your dose of crasher crust it is the perfect choice and a high quality product from the best noise dealers around. A perfect compilation as far as its intentions are concerned: in 15 minutes it succeeds to do perfectly what it claims to do on the cover. No bullshit, just crust pants. Another winning endeavour from everyone's favourite supplier Crust War Records.

YOTSUVA!

  

Japanese CRUST (compilations) Against the Millennium (part 3): "混沌難聴大虐殺 (Konton Damaging Ear Massacre)" Lp, 2005

Osaka. Third most populated city in Japan, legendary punk spot, historical epicenter of the crasher hardcore style and home to that massive plastic red crab. I only stayed there for a couple of days in 2018 for the All Crusties Insane Noise Victim festival because of its smashing lineup, along with rather cheap plane tickets, that prompted me to go there on my own, like a nerd armed with determination and resolve, with the desire to spend far more than reasonable in notoriously busy record stores. Before I traveled to Japan, I had been told Osaka was supposed to be a place where people were rather outgoing and a bit rough as well, something of a raucous, boisterous city as opposed to the more conservative Kyoto. It was described to me as the Marseille of Japan and you'd know what it means if you have been to the South of France. And of course, I had very good time, got absolutely plastered at the Konton bar (a very apt name for the place), got lost on my way back to the hotel, found a fellow punk randomly who kindly took me there (to my great embarrassment I realized the next day that he happened to be Framtid's drummer...) and obviously forgot to take off my boots when I came in the building. Proper French class.

But let's get back to more interesting matters. Beside the great music that everyone knows, I often associate Osaka punk with elite crust pants, vast knowledge of punk and with words, very specific neological phrases created to describe the sound of a band. These are combinations of familiar word commonly used in the punk world, that are, strictly speaking devoid of literal sense, but very rich in evocations and pregnant with meaning if you "speak punk". Know what I mean? This linguistic practice cannot be restricted to Osaka, of course, it's a national phenomenon and most crust or d-beat bands do it - they could be legally bound to for all I know. A quick glance at the Inferno Punx photo book published in 2003 and edited by influential Osaka punks, Jackie (Framtid and Crust War), Mitsuru (Gloom) and Jhonio (Gloom, Defector and others) illustrates what I mean: Deconstruction's sound becomes "Ultra collapsing noise crust", Collapse Society are referred to as "Ultra-scandi Tokyo crusties", Frigöra as "Scandi-magnum crusties torpedo" (I like that one) or Condemned as "Primitive blast crust core". There are many other telling examples of such imaginative portrayals in reviews, fanzines, on record's inserts and of course on bands' logos themselves, like the iconic Gloom logo for instance and Contrast Attitude's "Dis noise attack survivor", Effigy's "Grinding metal massacre", Death Dust Extractor's philosophical "Destroy death energy" and plenty more. In fact, this phrasing was adopted by a lot of bands outside of Japan, notably Physique and their "Disbones crasher" or Fragment's "Total noise fuckers". It can arguably get very redundant, if not lazy at times, but I like how cryptic it really is as these nonsensical phrases are coded for punks. It's fun, folkloric and validating I suppose. In my tiny mind it is very associated with the culture of that place.

And all that for some noisy punk bands. 混沌難聴大虐殺 (Konton Damaging Ear Massacre) (the word "konton" can be translated as "chaos" and it's also the name of a tiny punk bar where I lost my usual sense of moderation, so that gives you an idea) was released in 2005 on none other than Crust War Records. A pretty close knit affaire indeed as Jackie also provided some art, Framtid Takayama the text and Defector Toyo and Jhonio did the design. I have said it many times but I will reiterate because it is my blog: I love town-based compilations. They provide a fair but biased (there's always a curator) view of a specific scene at a specific time. The theme of the Lp is crystal clear: noisy hardcore punk for noisy hardcore punks. All the songs were recorded in 2004 so I imagine it had been planned well in advance to make time for the bands. The artwork reeks of classic crust punk imagery so the more timid listeners might be willing to avoid this one but it'd be a mistake because the Lp is more diverse than it literally looks like and claims to be. 

The opening band is Framtid and I don't really need to introduce them at this point. In the second part of the 00's, they just sounded unstoppable as they maximised the traditional gruff scandicore formula, making it sound more aggressive than ever thanks to triumphant guitar arrangements and riffs, this manic ultra energetic Osaka crasher drumming style and intense vocals. Like Gloom covering Svart Parad and Asocial. Excruciatingly good. Framtid are a tough act to follow and Poikkeus have been picked to take this tricky spot. Poikkeus is the kind of bands that I am familiar with but never really cared for at the time. Japanese punks never show restraint when they get involved and like Frigöra sang in Swedish because they loved Mob 47, Isterismo in Italian because they took "Chaos non musica" very seriously, Desperdicio in Spanish because they overplayed Destruccion and Voco Protesta in Esperanto because they romantically believe in the power of language as a tool to unite people, Poikkeus went for Finnish because they revered Propaganda Records. It does take a lot of courage and dedication to try to sing in Finnish, I'll give the band that, and their distorted take on the traditional Finnish hardcore sound of Kaaos, Melakka or early Bastards must be commended. I like the amount of energy they put in, especially with the first song, but it is sometimes too punk-rock oriented for my tastes and the songs are a little long. I prefer my Finnish hardcore fast and furious with generous pints of snot but this is well-executed enough.

I had absolutely never heard of Kruw before playing this Lp and a damaging ear massacre they are certainly not. The band was active for most of the 00's and played tuneful, old-school hardcore, but the first number sounds almost like a late 70's punk band (like Anarchy maybe with the lyrics in Japanese). The second one is much faster, with still a clear guitar sound which makes quite a contrast with the rest of the lineup. High-energy hardcore with a slightly crazy punk vibe. I wouldn't listen to Kruw all night but I welcome these fresh songs in this context. Adixion are next, a band with an interesting history. They had been active since the early 90's and used to call themselves Addiction back when they were a very different animal. Originally, up until the mid-00's, Addiction played excellent UK82 influenced punk-rock with singalongs and great spirit and you could argue that they were one of the best bands - not to mention one of the earliest - working on that sound around in the 90's (let's remember it was the heyday of bands like Tom & the Bootboys, Discocks, The Kickers and the whole Pogo 77 Records scene). Their switch to Adixion was also a musical switch as they started playing a more experimental and dissonant, not as regulated you could say, kind of hardcore music. I am a man of recipes and while I can really enjoy Addiction, Adixion are not my cuppa. This said I appreciate the fact that they were included on this compilation and this is exactly what makes such endeavours interesting and even challenging.

The other side of the Lp is, undeniably, much more in line with the Osaka crust orthodoxy. And we start off strong with Zoe and their groovy blend of Amebix and Zygote. Zoe was very much Taki's (from Gloom and Defector amongst others) baby and a grand opportunity to rename himself "lightning baron" which makes him sound like a crust superhero I suppose. I have always loved Zoe and almost twenty years after their demise I realize how genuinely original they really were and I cannot think of a band really working with the same Amebix-as-language predicate. As for the songs you have two rerecorded numbers that originally appeared on The Last Axe Beat (that I covered extensively here), the very Zygotish "New world" and the supremely Amebixian "Zygospore". It's good stuff. Did I mention they loved Amebix?

The listener is then brutally attacked by two songs of Ferocious X, then still a relatively new Osaka bands immersed in a relatively old Osaka tradition: playing emphatically furious käng hardcore with a lot of distortion. If Poikkeus decided to sing in Finnish because they revered Riistetyt, Ferocious X went for the Swedish language because they dreamt of Disarm and Mob 47. Or - much - closer to home of Frigöra, the Japanese hardcore band that pioneered the notion that hardcore could very much be used as a second language in the 90's, that substantially singing in Swedish (or in any other languages tied to a legendary hardcore scene) was a way for you to sound closer to the source material. I think that it does make sense conceptually but it also does make for some odd syntax moments and I cannot wait for a Japanese bands to sing in French because they like Les Béruriers Noirs (they won't dress as clowns hopefully). To get back to Ferocious X, I only got into the band rather recently (by which I mean 10 years ago) and was unaware of them in the 00's. They are one of the oldest - if not the oldest - bands doing the blownout crasher käng thing still in activity, have produced some solid records throughout the years and even though they may not be as popular as other Osaka, these two songs are absolute hardcore tornadoes of anger, distortion and just plain dementia in the pure local crust tradition. The drumming, courtesy of Takayama from Framtid, is insane and the vocalist (formerly doing similar noises in Reduction) sounds like a howling rabid seal lion. If you know, you know as the kids say.

The second Suomi band of the record comes next under the guise of Laukaus and I actually like them better than their brother in arms Poikkeus. Laukaus were snottier, with a touch of UK82, maybe just punkier, with a clearer guitar sound and overall less effects. They are very reminiscent of Bastards and Kaaos (just listen to that bass sound) with a spontaneous sense of fun and a "two fingers in the air" attitude. This is hardcore to pick up your nose to while drinking cider outside of the venue if you know what I mean. The song "Poisiukaa" even made me want to pogo (briefly and just metaphorically but still more than usual). The band's three Ep's (on Distort Label Records, Putrid Filth Conspiracy and Pogo 77) are also very strong and let's just hope that someone will have the grand idea to release a discography because Laukaus could rightly be considered as one of the very best Finnish hardcore of their generation. Not a mean achievement when you're from Japan.

Finally Konton Damaging Ear Massacre ends on a very crusty note with two songs of Defector, the band vastly known as being "post-Gloom". There are elements reminiscent of Gloom of course but you could always tell that Defector craved to create something a little new and different, not to the extent of going free jazz as they still very much want to destroy your ears and the little sanity you have left. There is precisely an atmosphere of insanity, chaos, lunacy in their music as the band plays with song structures and paces, maybe not unlike Confuse's latest period but with still Osaka crasher crust tools. It might be a bit too chaotic and loony for some but I have always found the band very endearing and an interesting sequel to a legendary band whose legacy permeates the compilation textually and paratextually. 

Is this a must-have, a classic, a compulsory record to own, a genre-defining moment? Not really. There are some brilliant moments indeed - the whole side B actually - but other songs leave me a little cold. However the album must appreciated for what it is, a snapshot of a portion of the Osaka scene at a given point in time so that it reflects what was happening there and then. Beside the bands included are quite diverse for a Crust War Records production and the album must be given some praises for it. 

As much as the unreasonable part of me would have loved to be punished by crasher hardcore crust bands playing the exact same thing for 30 minutes, the reasonable one also appreciates some variety and the discovery of bands I did not know. That's what's called wisdom apparently.

Konton Konton Konton

    

 

  

Japanese CRUST (compilations) Against the Millennium (part 2): "Mie City Hardcore 2 - Howling Noise Crusties From Gates of Hell" Ep, 2002

This will be an interesting record to review because I actually wrote about the first volume of Mie City Hardcore more than 7 years ago, in May, 2018 (you can read it here if you haven't delved into this masterful piece of writing yet) and in fact, when I did some research about that Ep at the time, unbeknownst to me until then, I realized that a second volume, a Mie City Hardcore 2, had come out 8 years after in 2002. What is particularly arresting about this follow-up is that it is a very very different one. You cannot really do more different than that. Of course, your uncle Bob will still find that it's still exactly the same bloody racket and that it's nothing compared to real music like Dire Straits or The Police, but people who listen to rather than just hear music will be unquestionably flabbergasted and drop on their knees. While the 1994 compilation largely focused on traditional Japanese hardcore (often referred to as "Burning Spirit", perhaps wrongly), the 2002 opus was all about noizy crust with a crasher major. Wow.

Alright, I might get a little overexcited here, in the end it's still hardcore punk I guess, but the shift remains impressive. You could argue that, beside the bands' similar town of origin, the most significant parallel lies in the very crust-oriented artwork on both Ep's. I noticed it at the time but it stroke me as rather odd in the first installment's case because, beside Carnage's excellent song, the Ep was crust-free, whereas Mie City Hardcore 2 visually appears to be an ode to crust. The subtitle refers to a subspecies called the "howling noise crusties", apparently native to Mie and very well-represented on the 7 songs, so you've definitely been warned. The artwork was the work of Jhonio from Osaka's crasher crust pioneers Gloom so it is a heavy clue to be fair. The cover looks like classic Japanese crust or what has become associated with this concept anyway. Rather naive and chaotically drawn crusty punks often with instruments and studs, this time with the skeleton option, it can be said to be a variation on the Bristol school of Disorder and Chaos UK, one revolving around punx drawing punx doing punk thing for a punk audience. Many non-Japanese bands have been using this sort of aesthetics since the 2010's and it almost always indicates that you're going to get served Japanese crust worship. But in 2002 it was still very much the preserve of Japanese crusties (I don't see the Doom/Sore Throat visual references quite in the same light although they're cousins of course). The punk penis on the backcover does not exactly win me over however as it just feels very awkward to have a dick (a literal not a metaphorical one, the latter being far more common in real life) with charged hair seemingly looking at you. 

But yeah, Japanese crust it is. In case you're supremely thick, the caption "Mie Crusties Raw Punk!" has been added to make it clear that the Ep is crust-appropriate. The three bands included on the Ep are thus all from Mie City: Contrast Attitude, Alive and Deceiving Society. Let's start with Contrast Attitude, undoubtedly the most famous of the bunch, a band I have discussed for their split with Acrostix from 2004 and their appearance on the Crust Nights compilations. Mie City Hardcore 2 was the band's first endeavour into the world of records (along with Crust Night 2: the War Being For Them !! I reviewed before). Throughout their rather dense career, the band has not changed that much and has kept playing what they poetically coined "Dis-noise attack survivor" on their first full Ep and if I haven't been able to listen to their brand new album yet, I am sure it graces the world with their apocalyptic raw assault (the rumour that they had turned into a 90's skacore revival band was, of course, a hoax created by a rival d-beat raw punk who remain anonymous).

Back in 2002 when the songs were recorded, and in spite of the strong similarities between their young self and their current self, Contrast Attitude had a very different lineup. In fact, between 2002 and 2003, guitar player and singer Yasuomi was replaced with Gori and bass player Hidehiko with Sin (who also played in Acrostix), the only original remaining member until recently being drummer Hirotsuna (the lineup on the recording from the 2004 compilation The Time of Hell still had Hidehiko on bass so there would have been some sort of transition). Stylistically speaking, the new members kept the sound and built on it to become a truly unstoppable noizy d-beat machine. In 2002 the band was a bit rawer than on the subsequent releases with the classic lineup, the aforementioned split with Acrostix and the Sick Brain Extreme Addict (a genuine must-have), but was already working with the same tools, namely Disclose and Gloom, to create that relentless wall of noise they are known for. I suppose the new lineup quickly stopped playing the three songs from this Ep although "All sea all sky and all war" appeared on the 2013 Stand Up and Fight Now Ep. That the first version of Contrast Attitude as a d-beat raw punk machine was already so impressive is not that surprising since the band has been playing since 1998 and their 1999 demo tape was a much more primitive raw discore affair and they basically had the time to train before reaching this level. Solid numbers here and I love the introduction of the first song with all the guitar layers. You already know if you like it I suppose.

Let's go to the other side of the Ep with the rather obscure band Alive with two songs that are their sole recording to my knowledge. The drummer Kaziyan also played in LIFE at the time and in Frigöra before so it gives you an idea of what he's capable to do to a drum kit. Just looking at the band's Celtic artwork you would be entitled to think that Alive's sound must be influenced with Sedition or Scatha. And well, not really. They still play fast punishing hardcore and I can hear the singer is trying to go for that high-pitched screamed tone (almost emo-ish at times?) but in the end it is still very much in line with classic Japanese noize crust, not unlike what crusties were up to in Osaka or Tokyo in 1994. Well executed and I love the raw thrash introduction to "Mind" before it explodes into pummeling fury. I wish there was more.

Finally here come Deceiving Society, certainly the most established band on the Ep at that point in time with two songs of quality raw crasher noize hardcore cruster punk. Something like this. Deceiving Society belongs to the category of "minor classics" of the crust genre. They are basically a band that is respected and whose value is correctly recognized but has not reached the upper level, the so-called collective canon. Often bands like Deceiving Society will be loved - rightly - by people that are well into the (sub)subgenre and seek to dig deeper and strive for comprehensiveness (the geeks' grail) but people with only a liking to the whole Japanese crasher hardcore and crust sounds will be quite content with Gloom, SDS, Zyanose and Framtid (I suppose) and not necessarily crave to stuff themselves with the bulk of the horde or think too much about it (well I bloody do). In the end, only people genuinely into the Japanese crust subgenre will see Deceiving Society's Detonation Cruster as a classic but from a wider crust perspective it can only be a minor classic. A crasher crust classic but a minor crust classic. Know what I mean? A matter of perspective and all that.

I find their highly energetic and aggressive blend of dis-loving raw punk and fuzzy Gloom-ish crasher crust very endearing indeed, very well-executed, solid, kind of a blueprint for the style. You won't find the weirdness of Defector, the madness of Zyanose, the relentlessness of Framtid or the crust versatility of LIFE but Deceiving Society has everything you can expect from a competent Japanese crasher unit, classical in a good way, tasteful, solid, very much like what Contrast Attitude would quickly turn into in terms of quality. The drumming is manic, the guitar is distorted, the bass is thundering, the singer shouts like a mad bastard and it is saturated with punk references (whether sonic, lexical or visual). The music is done by the book and since it's a novel I really enjoy rereading and re-exploring, I won't be one to complain. The way "Because freedom" accelerates instantly and bursts into speed at the start always impresses me, not unlike old CFDL on this song actually, especially with the dual vocals.

According to the liner notes written by Jhonio for the Lp, the band started in 1997 with the guitar playing only joining in early 1998 and a new bass player getting recruited in early 1999. Apparently the band made quite an impression on the Osaka crusties when they played their first Final Noise Attack gig in 1998 (there would be more, the flyers in Inferno Punx attest it). Drummer Daigo and Kinochi also played in Ability, a Japanese-styled d-beat raw punk that existed at the same time as Deceiving Society between 1997 and 2001, and the two bands did a split tape together in 1999 with some demo recordings. Ability's can be found on the Reality Was War cd but I haven't been able to find Deceiving Society's but then I presume it would have been some sort of more primitive version of the noisecore-sounding Cruster 16 Minutes Shock!! released on tape in 1999 (or early 2000, it's unclear). The aforementioned classic Detonation Cruster would be the band's parting glory, something of a shame as I would have loved more recording from the band. Daigo and Kinochi went on to play in Radio Active (with a member of Dropend and Zodiak) and the former recetly joined Contrast Attitude, 23 years after the release of Mie City Hardcore 2. 

Howling noise crust to the max.  

Howling noise crusties in Mie