Live by the Crust, Die by the Crust (2012-2021): Instinct? "Pray to death" tape Ep, 2020

So I have been thinking. 

In 2022 Terminal Sound Nuisance will be celebrating its tenth birthday. I have never really held anniversaries in high regards, even less so now that hearing "fuck me, has it been twenty years already" is steadily becoming part of the punk conversations I regularly engage in. Time flies, aeroplanes crash. I started the blog in 2012, a time when punk blogs were already either dead, largely dying or grinding into a halt that would eventually grow to be definitive. But in the late 00's there were many active blogs all over the place. Those offering a distinct take on punk music through a selection of little-known bands that reflected the blogger's tastes and approach were genuinely great and acted as points of entry to large sections of punk history that I and many more were unaware of. Others focused on new bands, promoted the immediate vibrancy of punk and reflected a dynamism and an inspiring belief in the relevance of contemporary punk music. Others were basically database with hundreds of links to download without much, if any, context so that you were left with just the music and bits to assemble on your own. But what mattered the most were the different voices, the different places, the different time periods, the different styles and tastes that you were exposed to. Not all of them were good and some were very short-lived. Running a blog is time-consuming and requires passion. It is also by essence a solitary work that is not rewarded by instant gratification, unlike a youtube link or a social media post that you "like". A blog post cannot just be scrolled down and mindlessly "liked" - well it can, but it becomes utterly pointless - and you have to connect at least a little bit with what is being said (unless it is just a download link, but this kind of blogs are near extinct). In an epoch when our insecure selves, our tastes, our looks need to be constantly and instantaneously validated, consistent blogging, and of course fanzines and punk websites, offer something different and hopefully interesting and fun.

So I have been thinking as you can see. I gathered my scattered wits, dismissed as much negativity from my mind as possible and decided that 2022 would be a little different. Not that Terminal Sound Nuisance should transition into adulthood, it will still be governed by the heedlessness of youth, but, as my well-paid business advisor suggested, I should diversify my activities. I guess that makes sense. The same old same old is alright, we all need a routine, I know I do, but new things must be tried. Therefore I intend to publish more interviews this year and curate more scholarly punk compilations in order to bring some diversity in terms of formats and contents and provide some breaks from the coming onslaught of crust. Also, I decided to focus more - perhaps even exclusively for a while - on contemporary and active bands. Although I have oft written about old bands and vintage classics and about our contextual relation to them, I realize I have not tackled contemporary bands for a long time (not since the Ashes to Ashes, Crust to CRUST series in 2017). I am very much an enthusiast for current bands and support the scene as much as I can, even if it just means hanging out and getting pissed before the venue while haranguing the public on their bourgeois lifestyle. Punk is a moving animal, an indestructible creature and while I love raving about obscure and sloppy raw crusty punk bands from bygone days, 2022 will see me raving about obscure and sloppy raw crusty punk bands from the past ten years (2012 to 2021). A groundbreakingly different undertaking. Routine, meet your death. Where will it take me? To the gates of madness? To world fame? Surfeited with crust you shall be. 

Since all the recordings we will be dealing with are recent, it will prove difficult to study them in perspective. How will they age? Future crust classics or just decent examples of the genre? From all the works I have ripped, there are some that I know are bound to eventually become part of the crust canon. Once approved by the venerable World Crust Council it will be a done deal. Others will vanish from collective memory and be remembered only by the loyal fanatics of the genre whose brains function as giant encyclopedic archives, the names of those obscure bands gloriously engraved on mental cenotaphs. But at the end of the day, my guess is as good as yours so I could be wrong about the future classics although there is a high probability that I am right as usual and that my guess is actually better than yours. So I have decided to write shorter reviews and to focus on the band and the music as much as possible, instead of blabbering about irrelevant meditations, so that I can work on as many recordings as possible. There will be exceptions because resolutions are meant to be broken - law and order up your arse and all that - and some bands are just too good and meaningful not to be properly tackled - by which I mean lengthy tirades - but the idea is to stick to a shorter format. Live by the Crust, Die by the Crust will offer a wide panorama of crust music, in all its diversity, recordings I enjoyed in the past ten years in no particular order - because law and order up your arse and all that. I intend to speak mostly about bands that I have not had the chance to deal with yet, so that great crust records from bands that already liberally appeared on TSN might not be included (I am still a bit unresolved about that though but time will tell). Finally, all the rips provided will be my own rips. I am aware that you are able to download lossless files of most of the fuckers on bandcamp but I enjoy the process of ripping my own records. Besides, it will make you feel like you listen to my own copy on my own stereo (if you close your eyes you will be drinking my own coffee and enjoy my own conversation as well). If my tape has a sound issue, you'll hear it and if there is a scratch on an Ep, you'll hear it. That's the full TSN experience for you. Let's ave it.  

 I am afraid our instinct is war indeed...

I had never heard of Instinct? before the tape hit crust's dancefloors during the spring 2020, back when Paris was about to experience it first lockdown. Good times. The year 2020 had its fair share of solid records, although it is far too early to claim that any one of them are grand cru or that some will eventually be seen as minor classics (some labels will have you believe that every one of their records is bound to be come "a classic" but who are they trying to con?). Pray to death still proved to be one of my favourite of the year. With five songs in about seven minutes, you can imagine that Instinct? are not fucking around. There are bands that enjoy taking their time in order to set up a mood, an atmosphere that will inform the story they are going to tell. Instinct? are not one of those bands. At all. From the very first riff until the very last growl, this Philadelphia noise unit unleashes hell without any restraints nor thoughts for the innocent and unsuspecting passerby who might just find himself within earshot of speakers. Tough shit mate. 

It is a short but furious ride. as there are only five songs on this tape (discogs says it is a tape Ep but I see it more as a demo tape, a first ferocious draft if you will). In terms of style, I would locate Instinct? at the intersection of three schools. The most obvious one is the heaviest style of käng (that's the initiated lingo for Swedish hardcore, try to remember it in order to shine) especially its 90's incarnation. It is fast, relentless, pummeling, riff-driven and I am reminded of top shelf bands like 3-Way Cum, Discontrol or early Genocide SS. There is also a distinct cavemen crust influence with the emphatic, gruff vocals and some of the arrangements that nod lovingly toward classic Doom and Sore Throat (especially the cavecore song "Gozpelfuckers" which also cheekily refers to Jesus and the Gospelfuckers). Lastly, some frantic drum parts and the overall hyperbolic noisy chaos - and some vocal intonations too - sometimes point to Japanese käng (Framtid) and crust (Reality Crisis). But then those three branches very much grow from the same tree so that Instinct? sound like a seamless synthesis in the end. The sound is deliciously raw indeed but the heavy pounding power and the intensity of the delivery are such that they completely make up for any potential weakness (although I feel the last song does not sound quite as aggressive as the rest because of the production). The tape looks alright albeit quite unoriginal. A typical war picture and a collage of crusty punks in action and not much else. Some details about the recordings, the lyrics and a thank list would have been welcome I suppose.

 

The band is from Philadelphia, a town that has been delivering some excellent crust bands since the mid-10's, arguably some of the best of the decade actually. We will definitely be coming back to Philly in this series. As I understand it, even though there have technically been a lot of bands, the people involved in them are very much the same, not unlike in Portland or Halifax I suppose, so that we must have five punks playing in as many different bands. It is by no means an uncommon phenomenon and it sometimes feels like telling the story in terms of groups of people rather than bands would be more relevant. Incestuous scenes. Discogs tells me that someone from Instinct? also plays in the primitive and poetic d-beat käng act Arseholes but I am sure the rest of them play in equally brutal bands too. My copy of Pray to Death was released on tape in 2020 on Sickhead Records, a brilliant Malaysian tape label specialized in international käng and crust music that is worth your attention, and there is another version of the tape released on the prolific Kiev-based No Name Label, an entity that focuses pretty much on similar noisy things. In 2021, Bunker Punks Discs & Tapes reissued the tape and a vinyl reissue also exists since Regurgitated Semen Records (the infamous grindcore label from Germany with a questionable moniker) put out a single-sided 12'' last year, an odd choice given the current prices and since Pray to Death easily fits on a 7''. Oh well. 

 

In any case, if you see the tape or the vinyl looking lonely on a distro table, jump at the opportunity. As for me I certainly look forward to the next Instinct?'s recording, I think a 15-20 minute long 12'' with a better sound, in the raw and heavy sense of the term, a couple of mean mid-paced anthems, some more Peaceville worship and an ace-looking poster will do nicely, thank you very much. I expect it on my desk by the end of the year.            

Instinct?