The crust punk is an organism that has fascinated scientists since its birth and rapid virus-like spread in the mid 1980's. Some of the brightest in their fields, biologists, anthropologists, zoologists and even astrologists, for some reason, all tried to define and theorise properly and rationally what makes the crust punk so unique, mysterious and, indeed, endearing. Once a rather common punk subspecies that could be found in most industrial cities - there was a clear connection between the vitality of the crust punk population and how socially acceptable dumpster-diving appeared to be - up until the late 00's, the population of crust punks has seen a dramatic decrease since. The decline of crust punks and their culture is polyfactorial and studies have shown that there could have been several causes for the downfall including the rise of the price of brew, having to get an actual job or the gentrification of punk-rock (also called the postpunk revival).
This resulted in the disruption of the traditional crust mating season (often, though but not restricted to, three-dayers crust festivals during the summer) and therefore, were it not for some heroic crust strongholds, in some specific areas in the world, crust punks would have probably gone extinct. Even its Japanese subspecies, the cruster, is starting to be endangered according to alarming studies. What a world we live in... It has become rare to be able to witness such magnificent creatures in their natural habitat, they who once roamed city centres, attired in elaborate crust pants, sleeveless brownish jackets that used to be black and rotting biker boots. Under pressure from the WWF, the international community has even thought of creating natural reserves for crust punks where they could thrive again, free from shoegaze and indie rock. Please, donate to Terminal Sound Nuisance and help protect the crust punk population.
One of the places where crust is certainly neither dead nor dying is Russia. The past decade saw the rise and solidification of a strong and lively hardcore punk scene that has produced some of the best crust records between 2010 and 2019, an incredible feat considering Russia did not really have d-beat crust bands of note prior to that, with the notable exception of the mighty Distress who undeniably pioneered a whole new punk territory, and their influence in kickstarting the Russian crust contingent cannot be underestimated. I first heard Distress in 2005 as a friend of mine had traveled to Russia and brought back a demo tape of the band. It was the first Russian d-beat hardcore band I became aware of and because I found the Russian language particularly deep and aggressive and fitting the genre perfectly, I figured I would be watching out for more bands. I think Komatoz was the first "post-Distress" crusty thrash band I became familiar with, followed by Antimelodix whose metal-crust blend also caught my attention, despite a somewhat odd concept. I got to bump into the latter through the great Crust Demos blog that was a massively useful source for young upcoming crust bands keen on promoting their shit and while some of the bands posted were quite average and quickly vanished, I loved the dedication and got to discover some proper gems. Closely after Fatum came along with Skverna and then it was not just "crust" that was knocking at my door but its evil metallic twin: stenchcore.
Clearly the old-school metallic crust style, stenchcore, has been the most popular take on the genre in the 2010's in Russia but maybe I just have not lend an ear to the other styles. In any case, Russian stenchcrust bands regularly started to pop up, confirming that Moscow and Saint-Petersburg were the real deal and, at some point, could be said to have become effortlessly the genre's new epicentre. Solid bands like Repression Attack, Duke Nukem, Chaosbringer, Step to Freedom and of course Kärzer, the band that we are dealing with today. They started in 2012 and I think they are still active, although Covid may have struck a fatal blow to the band for all I know. The Ginsberg-ish Howl was recorded in 2016 and first released on tape on Go Tape, an apparently rather important and diverse tape label. It was rereleased the following year on Headnoise, a good label that specialised in the d-beat/crust/käng thing. The tape adopts a "barbarian Warhammer orc crust" imagery which is seemingly quite popular among Russian crusties (The Lord of the Rings has a lot to answer for this).
Howl is self-described as an Ep and, fair enough as it has a solid sound quality and production so that it is definitely better-sounding than what you would expect from a demo recording (although you never know these days, there are crust demos that could easily pass as class albums). You can tell that the Kärzer boys are quite proficient with their instruments and had precise ideas as to what they yearned to achieve in term of songwriting. The result is brilliant. Greatly helped by a top notch production able to highlight the many details of the guitar without losing any of the power and heaviness that define the genre, Howl is an impressive and inventive Ep that builds significantly on stenchcore revivalists like Contagium, Instinct of Survival and of course Fatum. You will find the typical filthy and thrashing mid-paced moments, the heavy and slower mosh-crust parts and of course the punishing and pummeling fast bits. I would be perfectly fine with Kärzer sounding just like a traditional, if generic, stenchcore revival band. It's not like there are dozens of bands doing it as well as this Saint-Petersburg lot so I would have been happy. But Howl is more than your predictable stenchcore band as it incorporates eerier, more melodic guitar parts, that borrow from heavy Killing-Jokesque postpunk as well as bands like Zygote and especially Bad Influence. Of course, Instinct of Survival's Call of the Blue Distance precisely did that, mix old-school crust with more psychedelic, moodier sonorities so that Kärzer's Howl can be said to be as influenced by North of Nowhere as it is by its followup. The Ep almost sounds like a equidistant meeting point between the two, with the great Contagium carefully refereeing and because the band is so tight and intense - they really sound like an angry and anguished lot with those mean howling screams -, the production so clear and enhancing the guitar works, the recording does achieve what it set out to and installed Kärzer right away near the top ten of the official Crust Rankings.
The next logical step would have been the recording of a full album which, if it kept that sort of progressive stenchcore sound and songwriting, would have become a classic. But Kärzer then undertook a lineup change and decided to record another tape Ep in 2017, which I have never physically seen (even Howl proved to be a little difficult to grab hold of). The band wisely stuck to its old-school crust recipe but somewhat the four new songs have a rawer vibe and lacked the energy and magic of the previous tape's and I just was not as excited, but then I might have been a little overexcited the first time around so the element of surprise was logically no longer there. It still is a solid slice of metal crust, don't get me wrong, and if you see a copy on a distro table, get it quickly and, if you are a generous and rightly deferent person, send it to me as an offering. Thank you.
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