TRAGATELO / KONTRAATTAQUE "S/t" split tape, 1999

Music is known and indeed used as a means to bring back memories and, more often than not, "normal" people do not enjoy music out of love for the art but precisely because it has the power to bring back memories of their youth. My dad doesn't really love the Bee Gees, he just misses the days when he was smoking hot on a dance floor in 1978. All kinds of memories can be summoned by a tune, be they good or bad if you have been dumped to a particular soundtrack. I suppose it is very much a utilitarian, reflexive and in the end self-centered use of music because we only really just remember ourselves. Whenever I hear Tragedy I'm reminded of the early 00's back when I was right in the brilliant process of discovery of hardcore and crust and d-beat and all those lovely things that my mum hates with a passion. Those were times of wonder, magic, awe, amazement, like a kid upon entering a candy shop for the first time (but with nose rings and cheap speed instead of caramels), so I suppose I'm guilty of this myself and I do miss the innocence and excitement of times past, sporadically rekindled when I read about some obscure anarcho act I have never bumped into before. When this happens, albeit fleetingly, I feel like I'm 20 again. 

This tape does bring back memories, although they are not strictly about the music itself (which I have to admit I only vaguely remembered before writing the review) but about how I actually got hold of it. I think I must have already told about it at some point but since I happen to be the dungeon master I am still going to bring some context. Back in 2003 I lived in sunny Manchester for about a year as part of a student exchange. I said goodbye to the Eiffel Tower and learnt the way of the local indigenous people, the Mancs Tribe, and learnt some of their customs like being twatted by a total stranger in front of a pub I had never even been in. Good times. At that point in time I was heavily discovering heavier and darker punk music, namely crust, and I was an avid model student. For the first time, I had free internet access through Uni and would spend hours scouting, searching the world wide web for bands. Through fanzines like Slug & Lettuce, Profane Existence or local ones like Punk Shocker, Attitude Problem, Headwound or Reason to Believe, I was able to make lists of bands I knew I had to listen to in order to be taken seriously by older, cooler, balder punks. At the top of the list was, unsurprisingly, Sacrilege. I had been lucky enough to be able to listen to them for the first time at an older friend's house in Leeds and had been in complete awe since. Getting a copy seemed impossible until I found an American distro called Catchphraze Records.

Catchphraze were located in Arizona, really fucking far indeed from Manchester, and was run by people from Contravene. They ran the label of course but also had a tape distro, mostly homemade cassettes of classic bands as I remember, and they had Sacrilege's first album on tape so that I quickly placed an order (they must have been a bit curious). At that time shipping costs were still relatively affordable so that I added many more tapes from the likes of Amen, Battle of Disarm, Scumbrigade, A//Political, some of which I still own, and among the selection was today's split tape between Tragatelo and Kontraattaque. I distinctly remember the day when I got the parcel and religiously played the tapes for the first time but cannot recall why I actually picked this particular tape in the first place. I don't think I had even heard of either bands before so it could have been a case of sheer curiosity. Or perhaps a mention to Los Crudos was made in the description and since everyone love Los Crudos (for good reason) I went for it. Or I might have confused Kontraattaque with Köntraklässe which I remember writing down on the list because I had read something about them in Slug & Lettuce. Whatever prompted me to order the tape, I kept it throughout the years.

This version is, as you can see, a DIY bootleg and the following message was added to every tapes Catchphraze did: 

"This tape was made in order to make the music, and the ideas that go along with it, more available to people without having to pay the ridiculous "collector's" prices in order to get it. There is absolutely no reason whatsoever that this tape should have cost you more than $2 in the U.S., $3 in Canada or Mexico, or $4 anywhere else in the world (ppd). If you were asked to pay more than this you were ripped off and the entire point in making this reproduction available has been missed."

A noble endeavour that will undoubtedly sounds very odd to anyone born after 2000. Tragatelo (meaning something like "suck it up" I guess) were from Los Angeles and was very part of the Latino hardcore punk scene that was so active then (and still is and has become quite established from what I can tell). The band was best known for having Martin Crudos on the drums but singer Lina also fronted the 90's anarchopunk band Subsistencia. There are five songs on the tape and I had forgotten how raw, fast and urgent they sounded. I am reminded of classic Italian hardcore bands and of course more modern US bands like Los Crudos or even Migra Violenta with great vocals and a typical rapid fire delivery in Spanish with a direct political message to boot (the song titles are fairly transparent). The kind of bands that make you want to jump until you realise your bad back won't really let you and you'll just look like an old frog. Tragatelo would go on to release a full album in 2003 on Lengua Armada, the long-running hardcore label run by Martin Crudos (I'm aware he did many more bands but in my tiny mind he'll always be referred to as Martin Crudos). 

On the other side you'll get three songs of Kontraattaque for a grand total of two minutes and forty-seven seconds of music. Well, music might not be the aptest substantive here because this Los Angeles unit played mean grinding hardcore with an effortlessly raw old-school edge and gruff vocals in Spanish. Somewhere between Denak, Dropdead and Los Crudos perhaps? Kontraattaque was a rather prolific band too, an important part of the late 90's/early 00's Latino hardcore scene and they have a solid discography, sharing splits with the aforementioned Migra Violenta and Looking For an Answer, back when many hardcore bands were faster and more direct than they are today. Three great minutes that will have you crave for more (or less if your idea of punk is Turnstile) and will certainly be the angriest thing you are going to hear today (if your neighbours happen to sound more aggressive I suggest you call the ghostbusters as soon as possible). 

This split tape perfectly illustrates the political anger, la rabia and the intensity of this sector of the hardcore scene in the late 90's and treating myself to both bands' discographies felt oddly "fresh" and I strongly recommend you (re)explore them (Kontraattaque have a bandcamp where you can find everything: https://kontraattaque.bandcamp.com/) but the raw production - or lack thereof - of these songs makes them so compelling and reflects a sense of urgency that is hard to top. Just good, pissed hardcore punk with a message. The cassette was originally released in 1999 on Subversive Rhymes, the label of Heric and Dirk from Kontraattaque.

Tragate la attaque

  

STATE MANUFACTURED TERROR "S/t" demo tape, 2023

Finding the right name for your band is a complex operation and the negotiation process can be painful, especially when the drummer or the bass player suggest a particularly cheesy name (drummers should, clearly, stick to hitting things rather than offer lexical insights while bassist should be happy to even be part of a band considering their usually limited skills). Trust me. I have no idea how these New York crusty punks came up with State Manufactured Terror but you know that when a band goes for a three words moniker, things get tough quickly. In any case it makes it hard for non-English speakers to pronounce the name without sounding like stuttering ducks? Crust does have a bit of a history when it comes to difficult band names. Anyone who has ever heard a French person say Constant State of Terror, Remains of the Day or Icons of Filth knows exactly what I'm talking about. I like the idea behind State Manufactured Terror though and they couldn't go for State Manufacture (too industrial) or State Terror (sounds like a corny name for a 90's German hardcore band) or Manufactured Terror (too philosophical and academic) anyway so they must have had to settle on this one. And well, the acronym SMT sounds alright too.

State Manufactured Terror have emerged from the very active contemporart New York punk scene that seemed to have gained a lot of momentum since the early 20's and they contribute to put this peculiar city on the crust map again. When you mentioned New York hardcore to someone it instantly conjures images of muscular lads wearing jerseys and bandanas, trying hard to look hard and idiots moshing brutally in "the pit", attitudes that are synonymous with hardcore for many people. So I'm really not talking about this part of the scene as you would expect. To an extent you might argue that bands like Crazy Spirit or Perdition and others that gravitated around them played a role in the rebirth of raw hardcore punk or heralded the coming of a new generation in New York, although things are never as mechanical of course. New York has always exerted a fascination around the world as towns proclaiming they are the center of the world often do. I cannot say I was ever really enamored with New York punk or the idea of New York punk maybe because if it did give birth to the grandiose Nausea, it also created Leftöver Crack and that sounds really scary indeed. This said, given the quality and the crustness of the new wave of soap-dodging punk bands there I might have to investigate in person one day.

Many recent or active New York bands are well worthy of interest (acts like Straw Many Army or Kaleidoscope have be come well-established bands that can appeal to different audiences) and, because I obviously cherish crust music and have been militantly advocating for the recognition of crust pants as intangible cultural heritage by UNESCO (currently waiting for their reply), my attention quickly focused on the old-school crust revival taking place in the local squats. The town incontestably has a rich history when it comes to this sound with the hugely influential crust legends Nausea and the whole Squat or Rot scene with other smelly bands like Insurgence or Jesus Chrust. There haven't been many overtly crust bands in New York afterwards beside, from the top of my head, Atakke in the mid/late 00's, Zatsuon in the early 10's and Subversive Rite in the late 10's (they were more of an old-school metal-punk affair to be accurate but there is a Sacrilege influence after all so let's say they were concomitant to crust) so that the impressive current boom appears rather unexpected from abroad. Thanks to several successful tours Flower are undoubtedly the trend's headliners and undeniably one of the most exciting current crust bands but State Manufactured Terror utterly deserve to be praised too.

This tape is the first demo, released in 2023 on Peace of Mind, a local DIY cassette label responsible for a lot of brilliant recordings from the likes of Disputa, Witness or Love & Compassion (it does sound like the title of a book about the power of crystals but the music is actually ace). State Manufactured Terror is made up of people who also play in bands like Porvenir Oscuro, Headsplitters and Instinct? and is fronted by graffiti artist Wombat. Far from the often generic and predictable post Hellshock stenchcore that has largely become synonymous with the very name of the subgenre, State Manufactured Terror, in terms of sound and songwriting, keep it more old-school, at the very birth of crust between 1986 and 89. They could have played the Mermaid if you know what I mean. The atmosphere is chaotic at first and fairly raw which confers an oft sought-after but rarely achieved old-school vibe (presumably the demo was recorded in DIY conditions that might be rather similar to those of the pioneers) and as mentioned the band relies more on crust as era and moment rather than on a specific couple of bands. Being an elite crust expert, I can still hear Concrete Sox, early Heresy and Deviated Instinct but also some US bands like Confrontation or the little-known Cirrhosis and, well, I'm sure they love Bristol too. They sound abrasive, noisy and use different beats, from fast hardcore thrash to groovy dirty mid-paced metallic moments so the experience is pretty intense indeed. The band sounds really genuine with a real personality and politics, something that is not so common these days. The hand-drawn artwork looks as chaotic, dense and teeming as the music with a real punk feel reminiscent of these late 80's/early 90's pre-digital aesthetics. Well class.

The band released an Ep entitled The US Government is a Kleptocratic Doomsday Cult (making it almost harder to pronounce than the band's name) in 2024 on Autsajder Produkcija (Outsider Production, you get it?) and a split Lp in 2025 with Flower recorded live in the studio in Poland during their Euro tour with a very different production that makes it a very interesting listen indeed. Hopefully these lovely people have a full Lp in them.

Crust Manufactured Terror

 

RAZA ODIADA "Salta la hijueputa frontera" tape, 2016

Running a highly successful punk blog praised for quality writing, cultural relevance and avant-garde critical thinking for 14 years is no walk in the park, I can tell you that. Every week I receive dozens of parcels from random bands begging me to review their mediocre latest offering, sometimes even willing to pay for some of my outstanding words, and it breaks my heart to have to decline (after I take the money of course). Fortunately for me my personal assistant takes care of all the admin and all the denied bands do get their own personalised letter and even a signed picture of yours truly for consolation. I'm not a monster. But sometimes acquaintances or friends physically gives you the record, literally putting it in your hands, taking for granted that because you actually know them I will be more than grateful to spend a couple of hours applauding their band and I would be too cowardly to say no anyway. That's the reason why when I spot a mate looking for me with his band's records in his hands I immediately rush to the toilets. 

This Raza Odiada cassette landed in my lap pretty much against my will because a good friend of mine is a renowned specialist of the aforementioned technique. To be fair it was not his own band's but friends of his' and he gave me a couple of other tapes on the same day because he likes to share and because he doesn't really give you a choice anyway. Some of them did not really hit the mark but this one definitely did. I had never listened to Raza Odiada prior to this poisonous punk gift but had heard the name and was aware that they were based in Barcelona and made up of Latino punks who had fairly recently moved there. The 2010's and 2020's saw a significant rise of often rather young punks from South America or Asia - as well as from so-called Eastern Europe but this specific punk migration started well before - moving to Western Europe creating in the process the renewed notion of "migrant punk" with what it entails in terms of life struggle, discrimination and hardships. They shed light on the practical experience of migrating as a punk and, in many cases, for punk. 

There could be many different reasons for such a trend (that was not completely new either, after all Los Dolares relocated from Caracas to Spain in the 00's) and I do think one should not generalise and each personal situation is specific but I would argue that the internet culture did play a positive role in that sense, making it easier to build connections between continents and easing the process of moving as a solidary community. Where there's a punk gig, you're never exactly alone, right? Punk was always an internationalist movement so it was only a matter of time before Third World punks were finally able to land in Europe's hottest punk spots like Barcelona, London or Berlin, clearly the places that I would associate the most with the phenomenon. Inevitably this breath of fresh hair in scenes that sometimes tended to grow older led to bands being formed and asses being kicked and Raza Odiada should be seen in the light of this wider development. 

For once, Paris was not late to the party and we even had our own Colombian hardcore punk band in the mid 2010's aptly called Sinnaciön (and later on Ansiax) but as mentioned a cooler town like Barcelona certainly takes the cake especially when it comes to Latino punks making noise (it's not BETOE's playground for nothing). Enter Raza Odiada, a boisterous hardcore punk band made up of members from Colombia, Venezuela and Brazil some of whom previously played in Muerte Cotidiana and Final Slum War. Raza Odiada immediately caught my precious attention because of the spontaneity of the music. There is no pretense, it's direct, they are not trying to be your fancy d-beat or raw punk bands with pedal boards as long as an anaconda, no, their purpose is to play crudo metallic d-beat thrash with angry political lyrics about poverty, violence and migration (they did not pick a Brujeria song as a moniker for nothing) spat out by a singer that could have sung in some 90's Chicano hardcore bands. The production is raw and I love the sound of the drums, simple but very energetic and crushing. You can tell the guitar player cherishes his old-school metallic tone very reminiscent of Armagedom. Actually Raza Odiada could be described as a d-beat version of the aforementioned Brazilian thrash punk legends (which they'd eventually cover) and Lobotomia and I would add some Crude SS and Bathory, all blended in the pure DIY chaos punk tradition. 

Salta la Hijueputa Frontera stands as a very enjoyable recording that sounds authentic and punker than most, far from all the Insta nonsense and online cosplaying. The band released a full album in 2021 which I would also recommend but I like this tape better and I believe the length is perfect for their style. If this had come out on a fancier label... 

Raza Punk