Surprisingly, only two punks bands, to my all-encompassing knowledge, went for the name "Disable" despite the very punk-compatible implications of the meaning and the presence of the crucial dis prefix: one from Łódź and one from Atlanta (which we will cover today). It is unlikely the latter ever heard of the former since the Polish Disable were mainly known locally and only released a cdr demo in 2003, although they were also active for a little while in the mid-90's (it had members of Homomilitia and Lost so it's quality stuff and was recently reissued if you are not a poser). Therefore our Americans must have felt pretty good about themselves with this apparently still available moniker. And if you will allow a cheesy dad joke I take full responsibility for, Disable are definitely able to Dis.
I don't know whether the Atlantans are still going strong - they hopefully are - but their first demo was released as early as 2010 so that they can be said to have been relatively experimented in the D-game when this Ep came out. Arguably, Disable is a perfect example of a typical 2010's d-beat band. They could never be said to be main-eventers - like a Physique for instance - but they certainly belonged to the upper-mid-card if I may use a wrestling metaphor. This might have to do with their town of origin, Atlanta, which, from an outsider's perspective at least, cannot really be said to have a "punk town" status and nowhere as authoritatively cool as New York or Portland or Richmond these days. In any case, they enjoyed some nice records and notably a split with the ever prolific Warvictims from Sweden but I see ...Slamming in the Depths of Hell as their crowning glory, and not just because of the unsubtle Discharge reference in the title.
The past decade saw a formidable shift in the d-beat subgenre and the roots of this evolution that took this hardcore punk philosophical praxis by storm can be found in the 00's, with bands like No Fucker or Contrast Attitude for instance. This transitional decade was not particularly rich in strict "just like" d-beat bands, possibly because everybody had gotten bored with the 90's d-beat wave that had heavily lost steam by the 00's and I suppose people just did not see much point in mimicking Discharge beside a couple of nerd-focused exceptions like Warcry. The glorious comeback in the 2010's was different because, whereas bands mostly concentrated on Discharge imitation before, the new breed went heavily for Disclose's and distortion and a cult for the band and Kawakami rapidly developed. They became a legend. A band whose d-beat style was once rather unique suddenly turned into a significant source of inspiration and I believe Disable illustrates this move (they don't use not one but two different Disclose fonts for nothing) along with bands like Disease or Aspects of War which we have already tackled in this series.
Disable started out as a much rawer and primitive affair and guitar player Jeremy (who left the band at some point) originally handled much of the vocals while on ...Slamming in the Depths of Hell bass player Ben is in charge of the shouting and screaming during and possibly after the gig. To be honest, I prefer Ben's voice to Jeremy's as it is lower-pitched and sounds closer to the original Discharge impersonators and bands like Cracked Cop Skulls and even Hellkrusher or Final Warning or maybe Varukers (a British vocal vibe, but I could be going deaf too). And you know I am a sucker for doubled vocals in my d-beat and in this case it confers an old-school feel to an otherwise pretty modern take on the distorted d-beat style. There is a lot of Disclose in the mix ("duh" as Gen Z's would probably agree) but Disable do add some dis-crasher influence as well, especially in the drumming and the use of pedals and Japanese bands like D-Clone or Contrast Attitude are lurking in a quite visible background. I like it a lot and the mid-paced "False flag" is a wonderful idea although it might have been wiser to put it on the other side. A very solid Ep released on Brain Slash and Audacious Madness, a then very young label I am very fond of.
Finally this writeup would be incomplete if I did not mention the split with Warvictims. It did sound odd when I listened to it for the first time and for good reason (so I am not completely deaf after all). As the band explained on bandcamp "the songs were all sped up in order to compensate for the excess length of the tracks" which is one of the punkest I have ever read about a record. Noise not music indeed.
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