I sometimes find myself caught up in my own moral principles and therefore do not practice what I vehemently preach, namely to not judge a book by its cover (to be applied metaphorically as from my experience most novels, especially North-American, can be judged by their cover which makes the phrase rather odd) or its reputation. As vaguely bothered as it makes me feel in terms of the petty values I insist upon holding, I do happen to love bands before I actually play them just by reading the "ex and current members of" list. It goes without saying that I am sometimes violently proven wrong but let's not engage in an excruciatingly exhaustive excursus about the culprits as not only do I not want to find horse heads in my bed again, but more importantly I have been told on several occasions that it bores readers. In fact my brother once suggested I indicate the time it'd take to read the full review for busy readers, which sounds like encouraging laziness to me. It's like asking how long will the Sore Throat song be. Are you really that busy mate? What are you, a banker? Does this keep me from being waylaid by swarms of admirers on my way to buy baguettes? Does it fuck.
But yeah. Reading, accidentally, about a d-beat project involving ex and current members of pretty classy bands got me interested: Despair had Cordie on guitar who by then had already played with drummer Bryce in Raw War and Kaiten, Chris also on guitar from the mighty Decontrol, Foat from Limb From Limb, Fear of Tomorrow and Total War and John formerly of the underrated Dödsfälla on vocals. The thought that "it's gonna be a good one that" did accost my mind, never to really leave. This more or less justified belief is a bit like morning drinking: it sounds good on paper but can end up to be a disaster (pun intended). Despair can be said to be a band that I loved before listening to in spite of a generic moniker - in addition to the Osaka crusties you will unsurprisingly find three black-metal bands with the same name on Discogs but also a ridiculously cheesy Russian power-metal band that comes highly recommended if you're having a bad day) that still makes sense considering the genre. At least they did not go for Dispair (not a bad band by the way but you know...).
As mentioned, I was a little late to the party and only heard about the band when they had presumably already passed (their final gig took place in June, 2015), which I felt a little upset about but then it happens to me often with obscure family members so I didn't make too much of it. Upon playing the album on youtube (unglamorous I know), Despair instantly revealed themselves as a cracking "just-like Discharge" orchestra, a restrictive but ultimately fulfilling and engrossing sub-category of d-beat, not unlike what the saltwater crocodile is to its Nile cousin: the subtle difference is in the details.
Before Visions of the Inferno Despair thought wise to record a self-released demo tape in 2015 that illustrated emphatically what the band had in mind and several songs from the demo would be rerecorded and vastly improved for the Lp (released a good few years after it was recorded). The demo of Despair must be seen as an antechamber to their album as the Lp magnified the real qualities and traits exhibited on the first recording. Despair's demo was, well, essentially a punk demo, that is to say an allusion to what would come (admittedly it is easier to say in retrospect). This maniacal Vancouver unit is particularly enjoyable because they partake in the difficult task to replicate the philosophy of the first 90's d-beat generation of Dischange, Disaster or Disfear, not just in terms of sound but also in terms of their original praxis, one that is as close as possible to Discharge itself. This is Discharge-loving d-beat instead of d-beat loving d-beat, if you know what I mean. It even looks like a 90's d-beat record. The direct Discharge references may overwhelm some (who will gently and mercifully be called "posers") but I am not one to flinch at open Discharge love, especially when it has song titles like "...and they still ignore", "Life's massdestruction" or "Visions of the inferno".
The interplay between the guitars impresses, the guitar players do not step on one another's studded boots and while I am conservatively not in favour of two guitars in an orthodox d-beat band, Despair stands as one of the very few modern examples where you can actually hear that it makes sense (I am reminded of Anti-System on that level at times). The bass has that old-school dirty reverb sound instead of the usual grinding tone and I love the fact that the vocalist does not rely on pedal effects or forcefulness (two common flaws in contemporary d-beat bands) for the Discharge rendering, he just goes hoarse and angry but still understandable, not unlike on the Discard Lp (possibly a relevant reference in terms of conception when it comes to Despair's Lp) which confers a genuine hardcore punk edge to the whole. The Lp does have imperfections here and there but they are meaningless because Visions of the Inferno succeeds in doing exactly what it set out to: absolute Discharge worship with a taste refined through solid knowledge of the D word, an ear for the good aggressive riff with a cracking guitar sound and a sort of contagious "charged punk" collective drive. Beside let's not overlook that it is a full album, not a mere Ep, so that it is harder to make it sound coherent and whole, the story is longer to tell. The fact that it was mastered by Kenko kinda goes without saying and is the icing on the nuclear war.
This album is rather difficult to find these days but if you do happen to see it, don't dick around and jump on it (and do elbow your way to the distro if needed). As you can imagine all the lads kept playing in bands after on a more or less permanent basis with John joining the excellent and already discussed Genogeist, Bryce currently doing Reaktori, Foat Dead Hunt and Malakili while Cordie (also referred to as "the riff machine" in some quarters) just started his thirteenth band since 2015 last month, a formidable feat that got him to be nominated for the Vancouver Punk of the Year award this year.
this smokes! - ZM
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