"Balance of pain" is probably the best Swedish metallic crust album ever recorded. Of course, Warcollapse win the title in the "heavy gruff crust" category, but even their endeavour into mid-paced old-school crust, "Crust as fuck existence", a genuinely great record, almost pales in comparison with "Balance of pain". It is hard to believe that it was released twenty years ago and listening to it now only confirms that it was indeed a monumental crust masterpiece and it has aged extremely well, although the production gives away its age (and by that I mean that it has much more spirit and consistence than most of modern crust records).
Counterblast have often been compared to Neurosis, more precisely to their 1992 Lp "Souls at zero". It is a sound, legitimate parallel because the Neurosis influence is obvious in Counterblast's music, but it can be a tricky one too because "Neurosis-influenced music" (is there even an adequate term for it? Post-crust? Post-hardcore? Post-metal? Post-critical thinking?) has become a genre of itself throughout the years, with its own set of references, rules and expectations, but Counterblast cannot be said to fall in that category. Well, the "Impassivity" album from 2002 might to some extent but "Balance of pain" certainly does not. So my point is that, while Counterblast were influenced by "Souls at zero" and "Enemy of the sun", I don't see them as a "Neurosis-type band". Now that this has been cleared up, let's get to it.
After the demise of the mighty G-Anx in 1991, two members, Steve and Hoccy, formed Counterblast. It is often said that late G-Anx shared meaningful similarities with early Counterblast and not without reason, especially when one considers that G-Anx recorded their last Ep, "Out of reach", after they had split up, while Counterblast were already playing (or rehearsing at least). Of course, G-Anx were never as heavy and gloomy as Counterblast would turn out to be. They relied primarily on relentless speed and hardcore intensity and their sound was essentially hardcore in texture. However, listening to late songs like "In harmony" or "The beast within" from the "Out of reach" Ep or even "Life?" from 1990's "Masterpeace" Ep, with their slow, dark synth-driven introductions, it was obvious that the band was going for a more ambient, atmospheric mood, perhaps as a means to emphasize the velocity and aggression of their fast as fuck hardcore parts. Some of these G-Anx tunes, in terms of composition alone, can be found in early Counterblast, although the sound and the textures are completely different.
The first CB record was the "Prospects" Ep in 1994 and it was much more than a mere confirmation of the direction that late G-Anx pointed to. "Prospects" is a heavy record building on the G-Anx legacy, infusing it with the atmospheric heaviness of early 90's Neurosis and an old-school apocalyptic crust vibe. Had the band only released this Ep, it would have still been the perfect link between Neurosis and Axegrinder, but compared with "Balance of pain", I tend to see "Prospects" in hindsight as a brilliant introduction to the monster that was to follow. That's subjectivity for ya. The Ep paved the way for "Balance of pain" and CB refined and expanded its best elements for the Lp. Arguably, the album format is best for dark atmospheric crust because it allows you to tell a good story (assuming you can write a good one in the first place) and create a proper soundscape and I feel CB used brilliantly all the advantages that a full album can give you in order to create something that is both completely unique (I can't think of any other crust records sounding like "Balance of pain") and yet familiarly crusty.
Counterblast had the excellent idea, from the start, to have a member (Palle) dealing only with keyboards and samplers in order to create an actually multilayered music. This allowed the band to have someone specially focusing and refining this aspect, in the studio and live, and this configuration can be found on "Prospects". For "Balance of pain", the band saw much bigger as three members of Sanctum, a local ambient/industrial/darkwave band that Palle was also part of, worked with them on the recording of the album. Thus Sanctum's singer (Lena), cello player (Marika) and engineer (Jan) took part in the creation of the Lp. Needless to say that it revealed Counterblast's intent to focus on textures and meaningful sonic background and that a lot of these elements echo throughout "Balance of pain", not unlike "Souls at zero" of course. I would argue however that Counterblast only used some of Neurosis' conceptual ideas and readapted them to fit a genuinely, albeit more sophisticated, crust sound. As I mentioned earlier, there is also a strong Axegrinder influence going, especially in the some of the heavy, synth-driven riffing, quite a few Sacrilege moments as well in the way they wrote the transitions from mid-paced to fast-paced crust and a definite Misery (the band that turns everything it touches into crust) vibe in the angry vocals and the filthy, crunchy breaks. Still, these influences are all reworked through the atmospheric, industrial, incantatory, tribal prism of "Souls at zero" so that they appear in a totally different way. Never have the interactions between the Neurosis-influenced sound and the old-school crust one worked so well: from eerie and creepy insanity-driven riffs, crushing and pummeling Scandicore parts, industrial interludes, mid-tempo stenchcore charges to absolutely epic, darkly synth-driven bouncy slower moments, "Balance of pain" is an awe-inspiring metallic monument that is both quite complex and yet very easy to relate to.
The musicianship on "Balance of pain" is absolutely perfect (the drumming is remarkable) and the songwriting is stellar, and it needed to be for the album to actually make sense as a cohesive unit and not just a set of good songs. The production is incredible, very heavy, intense and cold (like steel more than ice arguably) but still organic and gritty, you can hear how the different layers are articulated and give meaning to one another. Someone once pointed out to me that "Balance of pain" was a black-metal production (not of the thin, trebly or fuzzy kind, obviously) applied to crust music and it is actually a rather relevant comment. I am not a knowledgeable person at all when it comes to black-metal (I could never relate to either the aesthetics or the mood) but given the genre's obsession with atmosphere, it might make sense and I can hear where the argument is coming from in the way the drums are recorded and in the guitar's texture. The album was produced by Mats Siltberg who also worked on the late G-Anx Ep's and on Rövsvett records but I cannot say if there was indeed a conscious intent to give it a black-metal feel.
Lyrically, "Balance of pain" is as anguished and demented as it is angry and determined. Songs about depression, alienation and pain but also about capitalism, alcoholism as a means of social control or the ruling-class. This is probably the true balance of pain: the physical and mental effects of oppression. The Lp was a joint release between Skuld Releases, Profane Existence and Elderberry Records. Following "Balance of pain", Counterblast recorded the "Impassivity" album in 2002, a rather good work but that still lacked the intensity and inspiration of its predecessor.
As well as this is known to some, I always had the impression it slipped under the radar of an awful lot of people because of when it was released. Black metal was the IT genre of the moment. The crust bins collected dust while the $20 black metal records were difficult to keep in stock. Though I never felt this way, crust was passé, even in the heartland of crust. When I worked at Extreme Noise, I hardly heard anyone talk about this band or album; less than the inferior, but good 7", which had few interested as well, though it had the "It's G-Anx!" thing going for it. It was simply too progressive for many crusties, and because it was quickly referenced to black metal, they wouldn't even give it a chance. To me, this defined a moment in the 90s as well as being a defining moment for the band. These different musics are coming into prominence, and here is a band that could turn those momentums into a finely-thought hybrid. They never matched this material. I wasn't aware of Sanctum or how that clearly affected the density and forward-thinking of this album. I appreciate you sharing that information. Thanks for sharing your thoughts and rips. -ZM
ReplyDeleteI wasn't around when it was released but I assumed that it wasn't exactly a hit back then when I took a look at the prices it usually goes for in discogs (a rather sad but accurate method usually). Thanks for the general context of the release, I guess that by 1996, crust was already losing momentum.
DeleteI discovered this Lp in a very different context, in 2005/2006, back when the so-called "stenchcore revival" was peaking. I had never heard Counterblast and it was often referred to me as a "Neurosis-band", a slippery thing to be called so I didn't really bother until someone pointed out that there was an old-school crust thing going on with "Balance of pain" as well so I decided to give it a go. Compared to the "metallic crust" outputs of the mid-00's, the Lp sounded much more intense and inventive, genuinely anguished and angry without falling in the trap of referentiality that mid/late 00's bands seldom avoided. I really couldn't figure out why it was not deemed as a classic at the time and I have been struggling to find people into "Balance of pain" ever since. Strange world.
Sanctum are not really my cup of tea but it could be yours, industrial/ambient music that is very helpful for the understanding of this particular Counterblast record. It makes a lot of sense.
i buy this lp back in the day simply because i trying to collect as many profane existence vinils as is possible. and i must say that this is one of best materials from both pe and skuld records. maybe helps i come in crust scene through metal so i have more ear for this slow motioning intros and haunting melodies hehe.
ReplyDeleteAgreed on "Balance of pain" being at the very top of Skuld's catalogue (which is quite an achievement in itself!).
DeleteI think they were labeled as Neurosis much later, when Impassivity was released. Prospects and Balance of Pain were "what is this shit? black metal?"
ReplyDeleteI should clarify a bit. In the 90s, crust was fragmenting into maybe [at least] three camps: traditionalists, progressives, and black metallers/neo-folkists. For the traditionalists, Counterblast was too much of other things. For progressives, it was welcomed creativity and interesting. For the crusties caught up in the black metal/neo-folk waves, it wasn't extreme or different enough. They wanted brutal, almost anti-punk music that was entirely a different world, or they wanted things like The Moon Lay Hidden Beneath a Cloud and Death in June for the very same reasons. The crust world was "been there, done that." Which, if you think of the 90s as the decade of excess that it was, that makes sense. Nothing was ever enough. More was never enough. Things were still cheap. Money and opportunities were plentiful. more more more. buy buy buy. The perfect atmosphere and situations to expand your palate and/or to re-invent yourself. After all, this is likely the same impetus as to why the G-Anx people were exploring and employing experimental music and black metal. They were every bit as caught up in the climate of the decade, too.
Very interesting. Would you say that this context apply to the US only? Or to Western Europe as well? I don't know how it might be relevant to the UK context. There was creativity in the DIY punk/crust realms, and Flat Earth attested to that, but I was not under the impression that it was out of the "more more more" mentality, but I could be wrong. Perhaps more in the "real hardcore" scene?
DeleteI didn't catch the 90's as I got into crust in the early 00's. There were remnants of the 90's scene of course but there were no longer that many orthodox crust bands, indeed crusties were doing other things. It wasn't until the so-called neocrust and stenchcore trends that crust came back, although I feel that it was a very different conception of playing the genre when compared to the 90's.
Anyway, thanks a lot for sharing this, it is very interesting to read some real thoughts about the subject. We don't do that too often nowadays.
To be forthright, I could be convoluted about all this. Most of my impression is from working at Extreme Noise + running a label. The label is obviously less subjective because my tastes pushed the direction, which shapes my perceptions, but I considered Extreme Noise to be a decent overall barometer of what is happening in punk. Speaking of my time and experience there, of course. I feel comfortable applying my impressions to the US, Scandinavia, and probably eastern Europe. It wasn't until later that black metal more outwardly seemed to affect Japan (thinking of how much it informed Kawakami Disclose near the end), and I don't know how much it it affected the UK, which is strange how this situation can represent how separated the UK can be from Europe. We aren't always cognizant of that in the USA. I seem to remember that there was a resurgence in things like the Doom trash can icon around that time, and without making an inquiries, my intuition was that the UK punk scene was also being inundated with black metal and the growing frustration with punk rules and punk dogma, which fed into that whole reinvention theory and breaking free with an exhalation of anti-punkism; rebel against punk itself rather than battle normative issues. Not only could I be misconstrued, but I could also be guilty of oversimplification. It's just how it seemed to me at the time. -ZM
ReplyDeleteI agree that there was some sort of "anti-PC backlash" in the 90's in the UK as well and from what I have read, many were frustrated with anarcho rules. I don't know for sure whether black-metal did have much of an impact there at the time... There was a lot of diversity and a clear intent to break from the accepted punk canons but they took a different shape possibly (through dub music, or more experimental sound, or stoner and even obvious US metal-hardcore worship was something of a break from the traditional UK sound). Besides there was the rise of the rave culture which was huge at the time and embraced by many punks and very particular to the UK. I have always felt that there was a genuine difference in terms of dynamics between the European punk scene and the UK one, even today.
DeleteInteresting reflections.
At some point in the late 90s either Blackened Distro/Profane Existence was sending out the cassette version of this album as a cheap add-on or a freebie. My memory is hazy. The few people I knew at the time that had it acquired the album that way. I didn't think it was a masterpiece or anything but I thought it was a good album at the time.
ReplyDeleteOk that's interesting. For some reason, I feel it is still not an Lp that really gets the credit it deserves but well, I am very partial.
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