There are a number of things that all d-beat bands agree upon, elements crucial to the genre without which you just cannot qualify as a proper believer. Things such as disliking bombs but still using them as a main topic. In a subgenre based on the imitation and the emulation of a strictly established formula, there is obviously very little room for originality. The stakes are elsewhere. D-beat in its most orthodox Discharge-loving form (I'm not talking about the legions of bands that are merely influenced by it) can be described as "a tribute made genre". It fundamentally relies on a web of signifieds and signifiers, the meaning and implications of which are understood and accepted explicitly and implicitly among a group of listeners sharing common knowledge. To an extent all subgenres revolve around these dynamics but none as much as d-beat. Referentiality is intrinsic to the "D", to its basis and its end.
It doesn't mean that bands cannot play with conventions. A band like Thisclose, the ultimate self-aware meta d-beat band, was a comment on this peculiar phenomenon and brought tasteful humour to obligatory bleak aesthetics (quite the tour de force, few bands were able to successfully blend fun and the D without falling in the trap of awkward metalhead jokes about "rock'n'roll life"). But the genre cannot be said to be prone to changeability as it values predictability and how accurate and intertextual a band manages to be (No Fucker being a great example). Basically, the covers of d-beat records, as part and parcel of the tribute and of the web of references, seldom lie to the punters. You must be able to spot a traditional, orthodox d-beat record and the church it belongs to from afar. It is all a matter of subtleties.
It would be dishonest to claim that Desperdicio tried to mislead the honest d-beat fan but I have to admit that I was not really expecting this style of D when I grabbed ¡Impulso De Destrucción!. I owned the Acceleration to Destruction compilation Ep (an oft overlooked, good little record) when I got this one but could not quite remember what they sounded like with precision. In my mind, judging from the cover, the error margin was but non-existent: Desperdicio must sound just like Destruccion. The Ep cover is a copy of their split Ep's with the equally raw Sida: it has the same setting, the same composition, the same style and the same intent to produce a naive but punk-as-fuck representation of d-beat as "hardcore radical" as the locals put it. The visual copy was so enormous that it made me curious of how close Desperdicio were to Destruccion, especially as a Japanese bandhaving a go at singing in Spanish.
Such linguistic endeavours are not rare occurrences in the Japanese punk scene. Indeed, local bands aiming for a highly specific language-based hardcore genres would sometimes adopt the foreign language to make the music sound closer to the original (which is both daring, admirable and more than a little extravagant). Distorted käng fanatics Frigöra or Ferocious X sing in Swedish, Laukaus and Poikkeus in Finnish, Isterismo and Tantrum in Italian and Voco Protesta in Esperanto (and Corrupted sing in Spanish too of course). This trend is actually fascinating as it implies that languages make and create national genres as much as the music itself and the idea emphasizes the importance of linguistics (with the scansion, accentuation, tonalities, flow and so on) in punk. And well, Japanese punks are crazy enough to try to sing in a language they know nothing about. What about French then?
And there you go, Desperdicio sing in Spanish and yet do not sound as much like Destruccion as you would expect by now. You would assume a d-beat band en Español to be all over classics like MG15 or Destruccion or Mobcharge but Desperdicio are a little more (or less) than that. There is a delightful simplicity and straight-forwardness in the riffing that do point to the Spaniards, but the enjoyable balance of distortion and aggression reminds me of Disaster or indeed Deadlock, a Japanese Disaster tribute band of sorts. We are not wandering in fast and filthy rabioso d-beat land here but the music pummels its way through a well-paced d-beat with an almost hypnotic quality. Beside the slower number "Pesadilla" that I don't really get, the three other songs are ideally predictable but some details point to that characteristic sense of epic songwriting that you find in a lot of traditional Japanese hardcore like the opening guitar lead on "Tomar un futuro", the Bristol-crasher drumming on "La ciudad portuaria pequeño" or on most of the energetic and mean backing chorus, although this may partly have to do with the heavy and highly signifying Japanese accent. The vocals can be seen as the Marmite effect in Desperdicio who are pretty easy to appreciate on the music alone. Recognizing the Spanish language straight away can be a little difficult because the flow and accent patterns are so different to Japanese but I don't dislike the band's choice as I think it does make one pay attention, which, I admit, is not necessarily a good thing in some cases. Beside the vocalist does not growl or yell like a nutter, he is of the shouting variety with a reverb (bands using the effect were still few in 2011) so that you can actually make out what he is on about (although you will have trouble actually understanding). On that level Desperdicio are more in line with a band like Final Bloodbath, even though the intent is different, and I can enjoy this type of vocal style for the duration of en Ep. It makes me think of a man lost at the top of a snowy mountain crying for help.
It is not a masterpiece but it is a fun and well-executed humble d-beat Ep and the inspiring longevity of this clearly passionate and still active band who believe in their recipe is inspiring and other recent Japanese raw punk bands in Español like Stimulus, Consocio Sentencia and Povlacion owe as much to the national tradition of singing in foreign languages as to Desperdicio. ¡Impulso De Destrucción! was released on the emblematic label Overthrow Records who would also take care of their two subsequent Ep's.
Desperdicio + Destruccion = <3
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