I did not realize how long Besthöven's discography was until I started writing this Pulitzer-level masterpiece. I was of course aware of the band's fecundity (it could more accurately be referred to as "a solo project", although Fofäo dislikes the term, or oxymoronically as "a one-man band" but then how do you even define what "a band" really is and what qualifies as one?) but not quite to that extent. I understood that I had not even listened to a lot of Besthöven's body of work. In general, I do check the band's new releases because I often like what I hear and because they are often split records a befitting format for the genre. But then, as you would, I get lost in that endless maze of new d-beat and käng bands that bandcamp and youtube have turned into and end up almost overdosing on war songs, cheap solos and studded jackets and basically quickly forget about what I have just heard, like a goldfish. But I suppose that's pretty much what modern kids have to deal with: fighting the desire to indulge in an infinite supply of cultural distractions in order to keep a shred of attention span. It is, like finding love without using cheesy filters for your profile picture, a losing a battle in 2024.
It seemed fair to include a Besthöven work in this series since Fofäo (the obsessive Doctor Frankenstein to this monstrous project) has been contributing his limitless enthusiasm - bordering on the maniacal - for primitive d-beat raw punk (aka the "DIS-CIMEX style") to many shared records. With bands like Disclose (an achievement in itself), Warvictims or Disease. Or indeed with Beton. The format fits the music to a tee. Besthöven's story is quite fascinating and inspiring. It started as your usual noisy punk band in the early 90's but turned into a very prolific one-man affair in 1994 (Agitate did an interview with the man in 2006 that you can read here) which is pretty impressive indeed given the rather strict template Besthöven works on. Depending on your philosophical stance on dis-music, you will see the task as either piss easy because you consider that it's always the same song anyway ("who cares if you already used the very same riff 27 times, it has always worked and it's not like you have a demanding audience") or as very challenging since it is difficult to do the same thing on an on again without losing the passion, dedication and a sense of inspiration. If anything, Besthöven and its longevity, whether you like and rate the music or not, is an undying testimony to the validity and relevance of d-beat and käng as genre and aesthetics and an affirmation that it can be an actual way of life. Still bollox but still here.
This is not to say that all Besthöven records are exactly alike but Fofäo's work ethics have not changed: the goal is to produce raw and unrefined hardcore punk. The influence of Anti-Cimex always prevails of course but most of the 80's Swedish hardcore bands are invited to the table and in recent years I sense that Disarm and Avskum were regular guests especially with Fofäo's very distinctive vocals. What I love about them is that they are shouted and angry, respect the obligatory flow and prosody but still maintain some rough-hewn tunefulness like in the two aforementioned käng classics (Avskum's Gunnar is the master of such a vocal style) adding some gruff melodies and, dare I say, emotions. It's not as brutal vocally as what you could expect but I always felt Besthöven's approach was the right one in this case and it makes the band easily recognizable.
The three songs on this split Ep are typical of what Besthöven do on a good day which is exactly what you want. Straight-forward and raw galloping d-beat käng with a purity and an orthodoxy that is both admirable and a little scary. I get a 90's dis-vibe on this one, there is a lot of Disclose-meets-Diskonto-at-an-Avskum-karaoke-night here here more of an 80's. It's difficult to call yourself a fan of the D if you don't own at least a couple of Besthöven records and many are fairly to find.
On the other side, two songs of Beton (meaning "concrete" just like in French for once) from Bratislava await the listener. To be quite honest, I mostly grabbed this split Ep for Beton (although I am always up for some Besthöven) as I am a bit of a fan of heavy crust punk from Central Europe and they are certainly up there when it comes to delivering groovy Swedish-inspired hardcore heaviness. I would not say I really missed out on the band. When they first came to life in the mid 00's, I remember downloading their 2005 demo on a blog (from crust-demos probably) and being pleasantly surprised. Well, surprised might not be the most accurate term as even though I did not know current bands from Slovakia, there was no reason for the country to be deprived of smelly punks keen on making a crust racket when neighbouring Czech and Poland definitely had their fair share of this strange species that baffle anthropologists to this day. So when I first bumped into Beton, they basically made sense even before I listened to them and because their take on the genre was rather akin to that heavy dark vibe that characterized 90's and 00's crust bands from Central Europe, Beton felt very natural.
Prior to that 00's generations, the one Slovakian band I was significantly aware of was Nonconformist from the Eastern town of Košice. It would be a lie to claim that I am fully conversant with the band's discography - on other occasions it is a lie I would certainly embrace - but their Open Your Eyes Ep from 1994 is a cruelly underrated jewel that fans of female-fronted anarcho crust-punk should revere. Still, despite strong suspicions, I was pretty clueless as what had been and was happening there but the arrival of Beton, Deadissexy (I absolutely loved their demo of cavemen käng crust) and Roxor, whose 2006 demo was an equally convincing heavy crust effort, was pivotal. You had your Slovakian crust Big Three. But then things grew kinda quiet (Beton did release a split Ep with national grinders Čad in 2007 though) and it wasn't until the late 00's/early 10's that Beton and Roxor really started to record and release things. But as I said, caught in the constant flux of novelties, I did not pay enough attention to what they were up to until a few years ago when I took the time to.
When Beton reformed in 2008, they turned into a different animal, more powerful but still feeding on things of the D, more accurately the leaves that one can find on the Scandinus Crustus tree. By that time the band had absorbed three members of the aforementioned Deadissexy and their first endeavour in the studio with that team was devastating indeed. The two songs included on this Ep are perfectly executed examples of what heavy and dark metallic crust-käng should sound like. Use the mean metallic hardcore side of late Anti-Cimex (the song "Konvoj" is actually a tribute to them) and early Wolfbrigade as your dow and the dirty crust vibe of Warcollapse and Mass Genocide Process as your filling and serve warm with a can of lager. The two songs do exactly what they are supposed to do and I love the fact that the production manages to highlight the heaviness and the raw aggression as well. Of course the choice to sing in their mother language also adds to convey the dark anger permeating the songwriting. A really good job.
Both bands are still going, Besthöven doing what Besthöven do and Beton evolving into something more metal-oriented. This was as collaboration between several labels: the local Totalitarianism Still Continues, I Feel Good (from Britanny!), Rabia Contra el Sistema from Spain and Dist & Confuzed from Sweden.
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