This tape takes me back to a more innocent, almost virginal, time back when everything punk felt new, exciting, all gigs were existential moments, all bands were statements, all beers drunk were akin to showing the fingers to "the Capitalist System", all badges were worn like medals, stripes earned. I am not talking about the year 2017 when this tape was released of course. By then I could already be described as a slightly blasé purist (mostly for the pose), fatigued for the sake of claiming I was, eyes sharp, ears even sharper, the wit ready to bite, grading bands like my sadistic math teacher graded copies when I was 12. No, what I mean is that buying this cassette, the intention causing the act and more importantly the very reason why I waved the fiver at the distro table took me back to my formative punk years, when receding hairlines were the least of my worries and getting bald but a distant prospect that was about as real to me as getting a proper job. Little did I know.
When Huff Raid played in Paris during the Autumn of 2017, I went to the gig almost without checking it beforehand. I am saying "almost" because there were only a couple of songs uploaded on their bandcamp at that point - taken from the first recording - and if I remember distractedly playing one, I was rather unimpressed and only got off my arse to go to the venue because my best friend was putting on the gig and always made a point to "support the scene" because we are a "network of friends". And I think I owed him one. For my defense it was on a Monday night, basically the worst day for a band on tour, so my customary loyalty was a little challenged, I'll be honest. And let's frankly deal with the lexical elephant in the room: the name kinda sucked. In France we have a long, tedious, painful tradition of punk bands using puns for their monikers. Sometimes great bands shoot themselves in the foot trying to come up with a funny or - even worse - a clever name although more often than not, if the name has an awkward pun, the music is likely to be an ordeal rather than a revelation. So there were many deterring factors: an unknown band I have never heard with a bit of a crap name, a rainy Monday night and some of the filthiest beers served in the area. A potential recipe for disaster and yet Huff Raid played a blinder sending me back to my petty prejudices.
Witnessing their performance took me back to when I was 16, had no clue who the band on stage was and thoroughly enjoyed it nonetheless. This element of surprise and this feeling of discovery were part and parcel of what punk was all about in the early 00's because you could not check the bands online before and since I did not know much anyway, everything seemed awesome to me, each band was the best in the world and I would rush to the distro table and basically stare at the merch because I usually could not afford it. Still, I remember these gigs vividly and although I now realize that some of the bands I saw at that time were average at best, the emotion and the impression that they were undeniably the dog's bollocks has never quite left me. I am not claiming that Huff Raid stood as the best crust acts of the year or that they shook me to the very core (there was the disgusting beer for that), but just the fact of seeing a band from my general field expertise, that I did not know, and liking a lot more than I expected, so much so that I bought the tape right away, felt brilliant. It was a fresh experience and I recall going home light-hearted and thinking that I had been right to go and a twat for being judgmental at times. I have been to hundreds of gigs since then, some with higher profile bands on the bill, but have seldom experienced the same element of happy surprise. As a consequence Huff Raid to me symbolise a band that is unfairly unknown but nonetheless delivered quality crustcore.
This lot were from Toruń, Poland, a town apparently more famous for its gingerbread than crust music. I don't think they were around for long and only recorded twice. The first was for a demo tape self-released in early 2017 with six songs - three of which were added on bandcamp - that are really not bad at all when I could actually be arsed to listen to them properly and a second session, with eight songs this time, that was released as a tour tape, probably to have something to sell the punters while on the road, but also a split Lp with Non President, another crust band from Wojcieszów, a town that is not only much smaller than Toruń but also much more difficult to pronounce. Somewhat unusually Huff Raid (implying both fear and a discontent-fueled attack, let's get intellectual for the sake of appearances) sing in English rather than Polish. If it does seem a little odd at first because the vast majority of Polish crust bands sing in their home language, because Huff Raid do not sound at all like one - by which I mean that they do not stylistically use the traditional Polish metallic crust template as defined by the 90's wave (I have already approached the subject on several occasions) - it does not really matter. Had they tried to sound like or rely on Homomilitia, Enough! or Hostility, singing in English would have been, I feel, a mistake. However, given their scandicrust take on the genre, I don't think it is of much importance.
On this twelve minute long tape, the band sounds absolutely relentless, hence my decision to leave the eight songs (all intriguingly entitled with one single word) on the one file, in order to reflect that implacable dimension. The music is fast, pummeling in the Swedish d-beat crust way, with solid riffs, not unlike 3-Way Cum, early Acursed or non-Scandinavian adaptations of the genre like Another Oppressive System. They are a bit heavier and darker than your typical käng band too, very much crust-oriented on that level, and I am reminded of bands like Nuclear Death Terror or Social Insecurity as well but the Poles never wander into metal. They hit hard, sound unstoppable and impactful and the tape leaves you craving for more. It's quality stuff and it's a shame they did not keep going and a shame they did not garner more attention at the time outside of Poland. The split Lp can still be found easily and you just should give it a try.
Did I mention they ripped live?
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