Adventure in split Ep's! I have no gun but I can split: DYSPNEA / NAKOT "S/t" split Ep, 2007

This is a record I actually bought fairly recently, out of nowhere really, at a local punk gig that had rather melodic bands on the bill. I always check out record stands in case something decent got lost in the midst of all the usual crap (or fast food punk as I wittily call it) and, as the night proved it, you never know what you are going to come across. To find this Ep, 17 years after its release, was unlikely and I imagine it had been sleeping in the box since it came out after a record trade. It might seem curious but then some distros have been sleeping for ages and only see the light day every three years or so and beside the genre that Dyspnea and Nakot engaged in not being really popular in France it is not all that surprising. It has to be said that some of this split's jail mates - some of which had been doing time in the box for well over twenty years - were bound however to remain buried there for eternity. Still you've got to love sleeping distros, they're always a fun, albeit frightening at times, trip into the past that will have you reminisce about bands that should not be reminisced about sometimes. Who needs to remember third rate Ekkaia wannabes?

I vaguely remembered Dyspnea as being "kinda neocrusty" but my memory of Nakot was much more accurate, or rather I remembered accurately quite liking Nakot even though I had not played their split with the brilliant Дажд/Dažd (a cruelly underrated band whose first album I rate very highly) for a while. So when I bumped into this great-looking humble record for a mere three euros, I didn't mess about and grabbed it. I saw surprise but also gratefulness in the eyes of the bloke running this tiny distro. Mind you, this Ep may have traveled more than me. The context of the release of this Ep was quite specific as it showcased two contemporary, modern, young bands from the Balkans which was not so common at the time, especially from my perspective as I still did not know much about the Greek scene (about which I have written extensively) and even less about bands from Yugoslavia. As I recall it, this collaboration between Dyspnea and Nakot excited my curiosity because I had not quite figured out yet that the classic 00's crust/d-beat/scandi sound had reached the Balkans. No, as you can see, I haven't always been the quickest kid on the block.

It strikes me as a little strange that Dyspnea, from Tyrnavos, almost always slips my mind when I reflect upon the Greek crust mythology, an activity I engage in often, deeply and with statuesque intensity. Still, I know I must have come across the name right when the band started through the then active blog scene of the late 00's, quite possibly thanks to Crustcracker or Crust Demos (the latter surviving until 2020), two blogs that were run by punks from Greece that I checked regularly and focused on obscure contemporary international bands of the fast and punishing variety. Those, among others, were great sources of information and inspiration as it reinforced the idea that punk was an unstoppable DIY international movement and that youthful talentless people from all over the world, be they from Chile, Indonesia or Slovenia, could also try to sound like Discharge or Doom and that's the real beauty of punk-rock, what unites us all. 

But to get back at Dyspnea they always stood for that time and the discovery process attached to it in my mind, they epitomised the type of bands that I would get to know through a blog: pretty local, pretty raw and pretty typical of the era (three criteria that are in no way bad things). I used to download a lot of music from these blogs (and I still do download a lot of music) and I loved the fact that they often promoted bands that were local to them. This recording is pretty raw, if not rough, even by 00's standards and if I did not know better (or if I could not read) I would have thought that they had been around in the early 90's rather than the late 00's. In any case Dyspnea cannot be described as being "neocrust", although they do have the odd melodic leads, an intensely dark vibe and a logo that is not dissimilar to Tragedy's (but you get five eagles instead of just one, it's a bargain). The vibe is dark, very dark, anguished even and the low gruff vocals sound pretty desperate indeed. Of course the Greek language works brilliantly with this kind of atmosphere (only the first song "Βολικοί Στη Σιωπή" is sung in Greek though, the other one is in English). The first number unleashes raw, bleak, fast crustcore with a slow-paced metallic break toward the end while the second is a groovy mid-paced one with a filthy tone and a singer sounding like he uses uranium as mouth wash. Beside ace Greek old-school metal crust bands like Ανθρώπινος-Λήθαργος or Βιομηχανική Αυτοκτονία, it reminds me of Czech gruff crust bands like Mass Genocide Process and neo(ish)crust geniuses Leadershit. Dyspnea would appear years later in 2014 on a split Lp with fellow countrymen Unfit Earth, using the same recipe but with a much cleaner and heavier production. It was well executed but did not have the charm of those two songs. 

On the other side are Nakot from Belgrade, a relatively short-lived band formed in 2005 that is still remembered - as far as I can tell - more for their relevance probably than their music because they stood for a new generation of punks ready to spit in the face of the powers that be in the difficult context of post-war Serbia. I was not aware of many Yugoslavian punk bands at that point in time - I was absolutely clueless about the buoyant scene of the 80's with the Ljubljana hardcore scene and the tons of national postpunk bands - and in fact, apart from Nulla Osta from Pula that played in 2006 in a squat in Paris (a band made even more exotic because they played with two bass guitars, crazy bastards), I would have struggled to name a Yugoslavian punk band. A friend of mine assured me that she had heard Serbian punk tapes so I at least knew the theoretical existence of punk music in that part of the world. But I'm sure a grindcore fan my age would have had a different perspective and vaster knowledge of the scene there because of the sheer number of grind/fastcore bands there. You could say Nakot, along with the aforementioned Dažd and Anaeroba from Slovenia - because their records could be found relatively easily on Western distro tables - opened a few doors on that level and expanded my punk multiverse. 

Nakot were also appealing because, to put it quite simply, they played a style I already liked and wore patches similar to mine (I assumed). They were basically a gruff scandicore band, a familiar genre that was accessible, and used typical - albeit drawn brilliantly - visuals with skulls, desolation, suffering and the good old Crass font. It felt like going to see a Serbian relative on vacation. Even if you had never met him, it was still family. Nakot's music on this split Ep was fairly simple, heavy and direct käng hardcore, a little lacking in terms of power because of the production (their next record largely solved this), but still delivering the goods. Picture Hellkrusher and Dread 101 partying hard while listening to Driller Killer. You can tell the band is genuine and they mention that when they sing about war, it comes from experience and is not "punk fetishism". 

Shortly after the release of this split, the remarkable efforts of some dedicated bloggers allowed me to explore the prolific 90's Yugoslavian DIY hardcore punk scene and discover dozens of tapes (they almost always were tapes) from the likes of Krvavi Mandat, S.m.c, Verbalni Delikt, Fight Back, Bad Justice, Intoxicate, Hoću Neću! or Totalni Promasaj. The continuity between those bands and Nakot ten years after made sense but also highlighted how much of a 00's band - sonically and visually - the latter were. It has to be said that the gloomy screen-printed artwork, expertly done by Doomsday Graphics, is one of the record's strongest points in spite of the rather common themes it depicts (but then that's what we are all looking for, right?).

A modest yet interesting record to be sure released on three Greek labels, Alcoholic Desaster, We don't Fight it! and Scarecrow, now a well-established label and record store, of whom it was the very first release.       

Dyspnea vs Nakot

How Crust Survived the Millennium Bug (part 9): After the Bombs "Relentless Onslaught" Lp, 2008

Could crust punk's obsession with war, skulls, destruction and Discharge be akin to a sort of pathological condition? It is common knowledge that this fixation has often been the source of mockery and subjected to derision throughout the genre's history but, like the unstoppable and omnipotent war machine, like the endless bombraids maiming civilians, it seems that one cannot escape the inevitability of such topics in any band proven guilty of beating the proverbial D. Although punk's war imagery and morbid representations can be said to almost always aim at denouncing the madness of armed conflicts and the need to proverbially protest and survive, as opposed to extreme metal's fascination with death, gore and weaponry, there is no denying that the obsession with war, even out of disgust and outrage, prevails in the stenchcore underworld and among the crust reprobates. I have wished for a crust version of Hard Skin for a long time, but a humorous take on the genre, in spite of its acute sense of self-awareness, does not seem likely to emerge any time soon (ironically, the closest band to offer such a bantering perspective was one of the genre's initiators, Sore Throat). 

 

You could say that noughties crust, globally, was marked by a growing tendency toward a more forthright referentiality, perhaps through the impulse and influence of Japanese crust that was made possible with file-sharing, but mainly because almost 15 years after the genre was born, the elements - be they musical, visual or olfactible - that defined crust as crust had already been fixed and sedimented. The path had already been trod for enough time to justify and legitimize crust as an actual genre, therefore crowning its characteristics as immanent, leaving many 00's crust acts to play with formerly established traits inherent to the genre. This not to say that the 00's were totally deprived of unique crust bands bringing something new to the genre (Lost can attest to it), but, for the most part, the decade was defined by a will to pay tribute to the ancients and maintain the crust tradition and not really change it, although it could be argued that the strengthening of this conservative stance can be seen as a meaningful evolutionary shift in itself.

 

Enter After the Bombs, one of the bigger names of the 00's stenchcore revival. Not unlike Nuclear Death Terror (previously tackled here), and perhaps even more actually, the band's unabated passion for crust's lexicology pervaded every dimension of this Montreal-based unit. To be quite honest with you all, my loyal readers, children of the Night and comrades in the battle for crust supremacy over shoegazing, I have always had reservations about the band's moniker and never really enjoyed it. Did such a petty qualm keep me from boasting an After the Bombs shirt? Of course, it did not. However, I have always felt that the name would have been more appropriate for an orthodox d-beat band. The name still nodded in right and numerous directions: from the top of my head Doom's "After the bomb", Dischange's "After the war scars", Iconoclast's "After the massacre", Disclose's "After an air attack", Hellbstard and Discard's "Death from above" or Bolt Thrower's "Attack in the aftermath", just far too many combinations of the words above and paraphrases to mention here. Does "After the Bombs" work for a stenchcore band? Yes and no. Claiming that it bears no relevance to classic crust would be a gross exaggeration as it does evoke the aftermath of war and surviving the apocalypse, two pillars of crust's philosophy, but on the other hand it seems a little lacklustre for what really was a top band (or perhaps it was meant to be a cliché in an act of postmodernist irony).

 

 

ATB formed in January, 2004, in Montreal, and the band can be rightfully considered as the continuation of the magnificent - not to mention better-named - Hellbound with singer Janick and the two guitar players Stian and Jason all formerly part of the latter. Hellbound could also count on experienced people previously involved with Montreal 90's crust stalwarts Global Holocaust - a rather prolific band that had stopped playing in 1996 - and were a force to reckon with in the early 00's. Although cruelly overlooked today, HB recorded a minor crust masterpiece in the guise of their side of the 2002 split Lp with Despite, a fantastic example of old-school metallic dual-vocal filthy crustcore delivered with brute force and power (truth be told, it followed a rather messy split Ep with Scorned in 2000). Twenty years after its release, I cannot think of many bands working with a similar pattern who came close to that recording session (the followup, a split cd with Waves from Japan, was not quite as potent despite a convincing cover of Anti-System). I really toyed with the idea of covering HB instead of ATB but, after some seriously exigent fasting - also called going for six hours without food in the first world - and days of intellectually challenging hesitation, I opted for the more recent and more iconic of the two, but do pay some attention to HB if you are into CRUST. 

 

 

ATB's first move was an Ep entitled Terminal Filth Stench Bastard in 2005, released on Oslo-based Sjakk Matt Plater, a label run by a bloke from Dishonorable Discharge, probably thanks to Norwegian guitarist Stian's connections. I remember getting this Ep from Profane Existence while vaguely aware of the band's past connections. The description included references to classic crust bands like Sacrilege, Antisect and Deviated Instinct which always triggered - and in fact still do - uncontrollable buying impulses that just cannot be interfered with because of my tendency to bite when frustrated. The Ep was entitled Terminal Filth Stench Bastard, a deliciously silly name, in retrospect, but one that shamelessly and unambiguously revealed where the band stood on the crust thermometer. I suppose you could say that ATB was an early but quintessential example of a stenchcore revival band, with an opening effort named after Deviated Instinct's pivotal demo Terminal Filth Stenchcore and an additional nod to Hellbastard, just to be safe, doubting their position on the subject was unwise and a potentially mortal peril. ATB carried a wartorn banner stating "this is proper crust for proper crusties" and, by openly embracing the stenchcore tag, signaled that the listeners should come prepared for an old-school metallic crust assault which the band conducted excellently on the first Ep. Four songs of mostly fast and hard-hitting heavy thrashing crust with plenty of crunchy Sacrilege-like moments and the ferocity of Antisect combined with appropriately übercrust artwork displaying, on the cover, a winged skull pierced by a sword while wearing a necklace made of missiles, while the backcover (courtesy of Chany from Inepsy) revealed three impaled skulls with charged hair above a torn war banner. Just another day at the crust office. The production is quite raw and dirty but very powerful which makes it sound like a collection of stenchcore songs played through a raw punk filter. Pummeling and filthy crust with ferocious reverbed female vocals which was quite unusual in 2005. These days, everyone and their mother entangled in the distorted d-beat raw punk race use reverbed vocals but I don't remember it being the case at all at the time and I recall being quite astonished but in a good way as the vocals sounded different and firmly conveyed an old-school 80's vibe to the songs.

After such a convincing Ep, one would have thought that ATB were going to use the momentum to unleash an even better followup quickly but at least two years passed - more likely around three, I seem to remember getting the Lp in 2008 although Discogs indicates 2007 as the year of release - before the band reappeared on the crust radar. However long and, in my case, morose the wait might have felt, ATB came back in style to say the least since they released no less than one album and two Ep's in one single year which exemplified an "all or nothing" approach that might not have been the soundest choice. The band can at least pride themselves to have produced a classic old-school crust Lp which is more than most could claim. Relentless Onslaught was recorded from April, 2006 to May, 2007, a unusually long period which accounted for the delay. With five songs under its belt (at the time the Lp felt a bit short, like Stormcrow's first album, but with hindsight and age-induced hearing loss, it is just fine), the album proved to be a better produced affair which, given the format, was for the best as rawer productions fit shorter works better. The improvement in terms of sound felt like a logical step ahead and was coherent with the story told by the album. The specifications were very similar to Terminal Stench Filth Bastard - namely Sacrilege jamming with Antisect in 1986 - this time with an Axegrinder-meets-Misery influence more prevalent on the slow apocalyptic moments and a thrashier Nausea vibe when ATB take the fast crust option (the balance between pounding speed and apocalyptic galloping slowness is just perfect) and I would also love to include the magnificent, and sadly unknown, Jesusexercise in the "influence column" but it might be wishful thinking. The Lp even starts with an eerie synth sound as a delicious nod to the old-school UK crust tradition. It has to be stated that few bands - if any - pulled out the Sacrilege-worship with as much gusto and taste as ATB (even the overabundance of cheesy guitar solo should be read from that perspective). You could claim that there is too much reverb on the vocals (or that the line "The shade of your own shadow" is a literary failure) but, in the light of the recent evolution of crust and the generalization of reverbed vocals, ATB can appear as unintentional precursors that are not to be confused with the subsequent pack, not unlike Invasion/Destino Final although they worked a different field. I personally do not mind the effect and am quite able to recognize its synchronic value.

 

The rather impressive artwork was done by Marald, a Dutch artist that has specialized, among other things, in the visual side of crust and hardcore for the past 20 years (he drew for State of Fear, Destroy!, Vitamin X or Wolfbrigade). In the noughties, many crust bands entrusted the Dutch artist with the task of giving life to decidedly grim and macabre figures as ornaments to their records and crustness certificates. In ATB's case, the cover depicts the four horsemen attacking a city, while the inside of the gatefold is graced with a reworking of the band's logo from their first Ep, this time with added putrefied heads holding a missile on their tongue (!) on both sides, a bullet belt, some barbed wires, a crow eating at a massgrave in the bottom-right corner and a city in ruins in the bottom-left. I you don't realize this is a crust Lp when holding the record in your hands, then there is something really wrong you; or you might be going blind and need to go see an ophthalmologist; or you are just in denial for the sake of it and are the kind of man who believes in flat earth theories. Relentless Onslaught was released on Total End Records (the label run by people from, wait for it genius, Total End/Diallo among others) and Vex Records based in Connecticut and responsible for some solid records from Man the Conveyors and Bomb Blast Men among others. The same year, two other ATB records got released, the Spoils of War Ep on Total End and the Bloody Aftermath / Black Horse of Famine Ep on Distort Reality. There is no recording details about those two but they sound like they were taken from the same session. With three new numbers exactly in the same vein and two covers (Bathory and Onslaught, which was a great choice) I suppose it would have worked better as a split Lp with another band because the Ep's sounded a little contrived compared to the top quality album. Don't get me wrong, they still did enough to deliver the goods, but just enough and I cannot help but think there is something off with the band's timing and chronology. 

 

ATB sadly split up in 2008 and I wish they hadn't because they had the potential for more crust goodness. I definitely can imagine them in a totally epic Axegrinder mode with synth and a more narrative songwriting. Oh well. Singer Janick went on to front Truncheons and Parasytes, Jason played in Ilegal and Kontempt and Matt also did Truncheons and No War. 

 

EDIT: Jannick also played in Fractured, Jason also played in Pura Mania and Spectres, Clint did a stint in Kozmar, Matt played in Sexface, Stian did Dishonourable Discharge and Josh played in Sporadic and Skraeling. Thanks to Josh for the resumes!

 

After the crust       

        

Records I Forgot I Owned (part 10): Surrender "S/t" Ep, 2007

This is the last part of my pointless but rather fun series about those records I completely forgot I owned and I hope you enjoyed it. Of course, by nature, it was a very dispersed endeavour as my memory works in mysterious ways and I cannot really see a common artistic thread between all these Ep's. I guess my forgetting had more to with how or when I came to acquire them rather than with their merit and relevance or what they sounded like. Let me tell you that I own much worse records that I will neither be able to forget nor get rid of. How unfortunate. It is strange that I could not recall owning this Surrender Ep because I love the band. I distinctly remembered getting a subsequent one, There is no War from 2009, definitely enjoying the tunes but still thinking that it was a bit of a short - 6 minutes and 20 seconds to be accurate - and expensive one - I think I bought it for a fiver and there is no insert. I was not really disappointed or upset but I noticed the discrepancy and still remember I did. Now, ten years later, it is deemed perfectly normal to pay 6€ for 6 minutes worth of hardcore punk music, but then it hurt a little. I suppose we were still in the early stages of the technological and cultural transitional stage and although it was not that long ago, it does feel like a completely different era. But my hairline has not receded that much and in the end that's all that matters. 

But back to Surrender. Since I saw them play in Paris in May, 2009, I suppose I must have bought their first S/t Ep on that occasion. I don't think I had heard them before and the gig itself was not particularly packed. They were billed as an anarchopunk band from Berkeley but it did not necessarily imply that they were going to go for a strong 80's anarcho vibe, but just that they had radical political lyrics and were evolving in the anarchopunk spheres. For all I knew, they could have been a crust punk or a folk punk band and the anarchopunk tag on the handout would have still made sense. At the time there were very few bands openly going for the old-school Crass-ish anarcho sound anyway so chances that Surrender were going to sound like something out of the Mortarhate or Bluurg back catalogue were thin indeed. Basically, I was very unsuspecting and, in retrospect, gladly so, since Surrender surprised me with their brilliantly written, passionate peacepunk music (that is to say the Californian take on the original UK anarchopunk sound). They sounded like no other current band at the time and I loved the agitprop theatrics of the performance with the singer being literally blindfolded, the bass player wearing a mask over his mouth, the ace-looking peacepunk backdrop and all the spoken parts in the songs. It felt both fresh and referential at the time.     

Although there was certainly a renewed interest in the British anarchopunk scene from the 80's thanks to Overground's "anti compilations", to Ian Glasper's tremendous work The Day the Country Died, published in 2006, and to Lance Hahn's fascinating interviews of classic anarcho bands in MRR (at the same period), few historical anarchopunk bands had reformed yet and there was virtually no contemporary punk band doing the classic anarcho thing. I am not sure why that is. Perhaps punx were not as obsessed with nostalgia and prone to unabated 80's referentiality in the 00's (Discharge worship, or D-beat, having been already turned into an actual legitimate genre in the 90's was the obvious exception along with the Japanese punk scene, because, well, you know, Japan) or perhaps youtube had not yet opened the gates to even the most obscure hardcore bands. A band like Germ Attak, with its overt and erudite UK82 worship, was still very much a conceptual exception. This is not to say that vintage Crass-like acts were not listened to or had no influence on contemporary bands, but more often than not, political bands at the time were more likely to play neocrust - though by 2009 the trend was on its last feet - or progressive hardcore than Zounds-inspired poppy anarchopunk. To be fair, Contravene did have songs with Chumba-like moments, which is what made them quite original, but it was one influence among others and you did have some English bands with a strong Conflict vibe (like Active Slaughter for instance, or the Anthrax-ish Bug Central) but it was fairly circumscribed. Surrender, on the other hand, were all-out Chumbawamba converts and invited the little-known and rather confidential glorious Californian 80's peacepunk sound to the table.

Surrender formed in 2005 and were from Berkeley, which, when you listen to their music, feels almost pleonastic. The band had Paul Curran, formerly from Crimpshrine, on the bass which probably accounted for the decent turnout at the Paris gig. I never could get into Crimpshrine so I don't know much about them but I know a lot of people love them and the "ex-Crimpshrine" tag was helpful for Surrender I suppose. By now you have already guessed what Surrender were all about musically but let me be more accurate. I think the biggest inspirations would be Chumba and A State of Mind, at the time when the two bands shared a split Ep (reviewed on Terminal Sound Nuisance, small world) in 1986 and sounded quite alike. The songs are melodic, poppy even and deceptively upbeat, as if the tunes could barely conceal the political anger and outrage. The presence of several singers, male and female, certainly confers the same polyphonic quality that you can find in Chumba or, indeed, Crass. Rhythmically the band is versatile but always keeping this martial, tribal vibe reminiscent of mid-paced UK anarchopunk, while the bass is upfront, offering additional catchiness in the guise of brilliant lines with sometimes subtle hooks, and the guitar does not hesitate to change tones and techniques when the song needs to be enhanced. On the whole the songwriting is quite innovative and goes beyond the classic binary structure, like Chumba or Crass did, keeping a meaningful narrative quality with unexpected changes of moods and paces. The tunes are strong, sounding both sad and uplifiting, and never predictable. As for the lyrics, they are carefully written political diatribe about personal and collective resistance, conflicting feelings about the relevance of politics (and punk as a vessel for change I would assume), the need to do something about it all and the sense that it might all be a big con and we may be tricked into doing what we do, like predictably harmless rebels. This is quality anarcho music that brings to mind the classic Californian peacepunk bands such as A State of Mind, Trial (though not as postpunk), Sleeping Dogs (though not as avantgarde) or Resist and Exist, as well as the British originators like Chumba (obviously), Crass, Omega Tribe or Alternative.

After this self-released Ep, Surrender recorded the 2008 split Ep with Acts of Sedition, then the ugly-looking There is no War Ep for La Vida Es un Mus in 2009 - back when the label was much smaller - which is also excellent, a full Lp entitled Paper Thrones the same year for Thrillhouse Records and, finally, a split Ep with Finland's 1981 in 2011 for Stonehenge Records. I know some people dislike the album and I have to admit that I did not get into it as easily as I did for the Ep's, but I feel it is a very strong, more diverse work which makes sense given the demanding songwriting that the genre requires for a longer format (let's face it, even though not everyone is able to pull out a Pictures of Starving Children, you do have to pull out some serious and inspired songwriting skills if you want to make a decent chumba-esque Lp). I guess Surrender must have stopped shortly after the split with 1981. Dan on the guitar went on to play in No Sir I Won't (which kept to the same proper peacepunk path as Surrender) and later on in Brain Killer, drummer Heather joined Composite and Paul did Onion Flavored Rings. It is difficult to assess Surrender's legacy but to some extent, they prefigured the growing influence of old-school anarchopunk on the 2010's hardcore punk scene, which mainly materialized in the so-called postpunk revival. Many American postpunk bands especially (like Moral Hex or Funeral Parade for example) openly referred to the UK anarchopunk of yore, which was really nice at first, but then, as is often the case with trends, far too many bands started to play the exact same thing while also claiming the anarcho heritage. At some point, whenever you read that a band was influenced by old-school anarchopunk, it basically meant that it was some kind of dark postpunk band wearing The Mob or Peni shirts. But anyway, I digress. Bands like the mysterious Ok? quickly followed Surrender and the aforementioned 1981 have made a reputation for themselves and although they are a bit too close to happy-sounding indie rock at times, I still cannot think of a better Chumba-inspired band in today's punk scene. There were and are others now obviously, but I would argue that back when Surrender started, they were pretty much the only referential old-school peacepunk band around. Yet they never sounded gimmicky or like a parody of who they were influenced by (it sometimes happens) as you can tell by the relevance of their lyrics and the unpretentiousness of their records and of their live presence. A really solid punk band that I wish was still around.    

 

Surrender 

State Poison "S/t" demo cdr, 2007

For the most part, the recent noisepunk trend gets lost on me. Even though I do give a chance to the latest records from bands claiming to take the Confuse worship to the next level, I usually end up being politely disappointed and quickly forget what I have just listened to. Since 2008 or so, there has been a steady amount of self-proclaimed noisepunk or raw punk bands from all over doing the "drenched in distortion and reverb" thing. And why not? If 2010's noisepunk is the 90's D-beat, which is not so far-fetched a claim actually, I am afraid most of the records that stand for the genre nowadays will not make it to posterity, but then of course that has never been the point either. 

Before I was even aware that it was supposed to be called "noisepunk", back when the punk internet was still in its infancy, the genre appeared to be really quite obscure and even extreme, if not conceptual. Atrocious Madness was a totally unique band then, with brilliant aesthetics and a real identity while I saw Gloom as these crusty Japanese old-timers trying to keep the flaming noise of Confuse, Gai and Kuro alive. It was all pretty epic in my mind to be fair. Chaos UK and Disorder were never "noisepunk" to me - it would be as irrelevant as calling Discharge fucking "D-Beat" - they just embodied this distorted brand of second-wave UK punk that generated UK hardcore and crust, and as for early Japanese bands I saw them as taking the Bristol sound to create their own style, but not exactly a genre. While I certainly made the connection between Bristol and Japan sound-wise, I never thought of isolating the specifics of the sound (the distortedness, the drum-rolls, the snotty vocal delivery and so on) in order to systematize a proper genre. But the internet age makes a genre of everything and anything and tends to create punk music that is, I feel, too calculated and too referential for its own good. 

But anyway, State Poison played noisepunk back when there wasn't yet hundreds of bands having a go at it. They were from Saint-Etienne, started in 2006 (I think) and toured with noise-heroes The Wankys. Even then, it was not exactly a teenagers' band either since the drummer had played in Vömit For Breakfast and Chaos ZZZ, the American singer also played in The Holy Mountain and my good mate Alex on bass had had the honour to be part of such legendary bands as SkitYouthArmy, Expulsion and Grippe Aviaire Terror. This was their first recording from 2007, an unfashionable cdr demo (it would have come out on the much fancier and more exclusive tape format today) with 10 songs and pen writing on the cover for added punk points. Sonically, this is everything you are entitled to expect from the noisepunk agenda: it is highly energetic, fast, aggressive and punk as fuck. The drumming is really dynamic and the obligatory rolls are played and located wisely in the song-writing, the guitar is distorted but not too fuzzy, meaning you can still spot the riffs, the bass leads the way and gives substance to the songs while the vocals sound suitably pissed off and are more akin to Japcore or US Hardcore than "traditional" noisepunk, which works fine in this case. It reminds me of mid-80's Chaos UK and of Assfort. 

The lyrics are in English and in broken French as it was Brett, the singer, who wrote them which makes them the equivalent of the broken English you find in Japanese bands. A smart and geeky move! Songs about war, colonialism, armaments, chemicals and the social death-cult. Following this demo, State Poison released one lovely Ep in the same vein before taking a more Burning Spirit turn for their subsequent 2010 Lp (the year when they played in Japan, no less!) and 2013 Ep.

Punk is aaaaarrrggghhhhh                    

Virus "Unacceptable noise levels" cd, 2007

NO, NOT THE EMBARRASSING US STREETPUNK BAND... THANK YOU. GOOD NIGHT.

Reforming. The eternal myth and paradox. The shitstorm starter. The excuse for endless online arguing, boasting, radical postures or justifications for selling-out. It is the punk equivalent of online name-calling between football supporters. There are usually two fighting sides on this issue. The intransigent will claim that any act of reforming is a betrayal of the punk ethos and, assuming they are into postmodern theory, add that the text is nothing without its actual context. In other terms, what is the point of watching men in their forties sing about topics relevant to them when they were 16? At the other end of the argument, you will find those who think that it is all just music and that they will be happy to hear old favourites of theirs being played live, the idea that the band (or indeed the songs) may have lost its significance not carrying much weight.

While carefully written punk lyrics keep their significance throughout the years (to some extent at least), expressions of teenage frustration may not translate as well when re-enacted by balding men who have had nothing to do with the music world for 25 years. To put it bluntly, on a strictly musical level, texts written by Antisect, Icons of Filth or Amebix are pretty timeless, still relevant today. On the other hand, I would feel a little uncomfortable seeing The Partisans or Abrasive Wheels doing their songs about being 16 and on the dole, not that these bands are necessarily bad today, I bloody love them, but to me they epitomized the youthful, snotty aggression that can't be recreated and I'd much rather see a young band cover them. Know what I mean?

And then you have to consider the motivations of a reforming band. It may not be fair since we rarely question the motivations or the "morality" of a new band, but here you go, old bands have been glorified and mythologized to such an extent that any act of resurrection is akin to heresy and has to go before the punk inquisition. I remember the late Andy Shocker, in the last issue of the sadly missed Punk Shocker, writing something along these lines (I'm paraphrasing here) "who wants to see a reformation of a band that only had the one track on the 'You're bollocks, we're bollocks, fuck the fucking bollocks' compilation Lp in 1984?" And really, what's the point of reforming if you're only going to play big festivals with other reformed bands, doing your old songs because the new ones are really not that good since you've lost the flame, and because the audience only want to get drunk and sing along to your two old hits anyway, because they're the only songs they really know, just like they do at home. It's like an expensive karaoke night really.

I used to be astonished when I was told that some old classic band reformed. It was a mixture of excitation, suspicion, disappointment and curiosity. To be honest I had no idea who Virus were when I got this cd the year it came out (and I was a little upset that I did not). I remember the label saying they were an old anarchopunk band who were extremely good live but never really got to record anything decent back in the 80's. Seeing that it was Jon Active writing this and he certainly knows his shit when it comes to the British anarcho scene, I decided to give it a go. So although Virus were indeed a reformation, since I had no idea who they were initially, I tend not to see them in the same light as "bigger" names (or just bands who did an Ep back then) I am familiar with and therefore scrutinize with a more critical eye.

Back in the 80's, Virus only appeared on one compilation Lp in 1985, "We won't be your fucking poor" on Mortarhate records. To be honest, their offering on this record is hardly memorable (and the band wholeheartedly agree with this as their interview in "The day the country died", which was done before their 00's reformation, attests) and with a chorus that goes "It's about fucking time that a turkey has its say" it almost achieves the same cult status as Oi Polloi's unbeatable "Whale song". Basically, if you were a cynical bastard, you could say that the Punk Shocker reformation theorem could be applied to Virus. But not only am I famous (if not envied) for my legendary open-mindedness but it appears that this Virus cd deserves your attention.

Virus were and are from the good city of Dorset, in the Southwest of England. They initially existed from 1983 to 1986, recorded two demos, both in 1984, and also got to play with Subhumans, Conflict, Liberty, the amazing Hex, the fantastic Blyth Power or the supersonic Disorder (epic mood you all). As I said my first encounter with the band was through this 2007 album and not their original 80's recordings so there are two ways to look at "Unacceptable noise levels". If you are not familiar with their 80's output, do not worry for a second, as this album does not require you to. It stands on its own two feet with ease, and although it undeniably sounds like English anarchopunk, the songwriting is solid enough to make one forget that this is a reformation album. I would go as far as saying that this is one of the very best British anarchopunk album of the 00's, my only complaint being that there may be too many songs (24 of them in 48 minutes, no less). If you already know their 80's demos then you won't be disappointed either, as "Unacceptable noise levels" contains both rerecorded old songs and new ones. If the first demo, "Infected", was indeed a little thin-sounding, the second one, "You can't ignore it forever", was excellent and some of its songs would have made a cracking Ep for Spiderleg or Bluurg at the time. Fortunately, some 20 years later, Virus have not lost their punk-rock skills, nor have they forgotten their political anger.

I won't deny that today I tend to prefer "You can't ignore it" to "Unacceptable noise levels", not because the latter is necessarily inferior, but mainly because of its production, which is probably a little too clean and lacks the spontaneity that you can hear in the first recordings. On the other hand, one of the main complaints that bands formulate in "The day the country died" has to do with what they sounded like at the time in the studio. For some reason, most of them feel that their demo, or Ep, or album did not have the sound they were looking for and did not represent them properly. The irony is that nowadays, modern anarchopunk fanatics like myself are usually drawn to the genre (among many other things obviously) because of the specific sound and characteristics it developped in the 80's. So while it makes sense that an old band would try to correct the mistakes of the early recordings and get a good production because they didn't have the opportunity to do so the first time around, a lot of people will prefer the old sound, as flawed as it might be, precisely because it is a  raw and fragile embodiment of the DIY spirit of the 80's. Craving for the past is a young man's game. We live in an odd age.

If you have never listened to Virus at all, expect mostly mid-tempo dark punk-rock, with a couple of faster songs too, somewhere between The System, Subhumans, Part 1 and Flux of Pink Indians, but with a heavier modern anarchopunk production (think Bug Central or Active Slaughter). The songs are fairly simple if you listen closely. There are no incredible riffs or earth-shattering songwriting, but they work nevertheless, maybe because of their simplicity, their directness which makes Virus sound quite familiar even to an unenlightened listener. Still, the light, but distinct, cold, dark, mournful mood that pervades some of the slower songs, combined with the snotty and aggressive atmosphere of the faster ones, create a sense of peculiarity which also makes one notice and individualize them. It is both everything you expect from the genre, with the typical anarcho drum patterns, spoken parts about political issues and the typical prosody in the vocals, and there is this little twist that makes Virus stand out. It really is good and a meaningful, genuine continuation of their old demos: they expand on them without betraying their spirit.

The lyrics are quite long and well-written. You find a couple of numbers about animal exploitation and bloodsports, but also CCTV, capitalist industrialization, green issues, social violence, the shallowness of modern society, class justice and how fucked up the world is. The songs are seriously pissed off and the fact that they angrily wrote about modern topics show that they still give a fuck and that's quite reassuring. The artwork on the cd is nothing spectacular, a little plain maybe, but the band had the good idea to keep their great anarchopunk logo on the cover (i'm a sucker for that sorta thing). This was released on Active Distribution in 2007, an anarchist label and distro that also released their second album, "Virulence" in 2011, that I feel is not quite as convincing as this one. In 2013 they also did an Ep for All the Madmen Records called "It's not what it appears" that looks brilliant and is a solid effort. Virus are still very much active though as they will have a new Ep out shortly on Anthrax's label, Grow Your Own Records, which will be a split with Bug Central and The Sytem and they will also be part of a compilation Lp on the same label alongside The Sytem, Anthrax, Hagar the Womb and Flowers in the Dustbin among others. Now, I'm certainly looking forward to these babies.

Unacceptable noise levels        

And if you are interested in hearing their 1984 demos, the promising "Infected" and the fantastic "You can't ignore it forever", you can get it from the always reliable Terminal Escape.            

       

The Mad Are Sane "Reality" Lp 2007

If you have never heard The Mad Are Sane, today is your lucky day. In fact, assuming you are into old British anarchopunk, and you'd better be, you might very well be the luckiest punk alive. When I got this geezer, put it for the first time on the turntable and listened to the first song, I was literally flabbergasted, gobsmacked, floored.

The first minute of "World in action" is of an epiphanic nature. The martial guitar sound with just the one chord, the heaviest tribal drumming you have heard and then comes the voice. The singer must have swallowed a box of nails just before the recording session. It feels like he is talking directly to you, full of spite, anger and outrage. Rarely have I heard such aggressive, threatening vocals in the anarcho scene. With their pounding rhythms, the songs sound like the world is on the verge of terminal insanity (anyone using that expression for a new blog will be sued. Thank you for your cooperation). Or maybe they sound like The Mad Are sane are about to jump at your throat, crucify you at the entrance of their squat and then proceed to dance all night around you, utterly oblivious to your moans.

Yes, this record is that bloody good. "Reality" was initially a demo, recorded in 1983, that was released on vinyl in 2007. To be honest, I ordered that one for two reasons: first, I buy pretty much any reissue, be it a good or a mediocre one, from any old anarcho band, be it a good or an average one (I would type "mediocre" but I subjectively can't); second, I vaguely remembered The Mad Are Sane from a Mortarhate compilation, 1984's "Who? What? Why? When? Where?". But I certainly did not expect it to be that fucking brilliant. That's what I love about punk-rock, when you think you know it all and feel jaded, there's always one band you've never heard of that you will remind you that it is a never-ending spring of greatness. Long live dead punk bands!

If I were to describe The Mad Are Sane, I would say that it really reminds me of Exit-Stance (one of the most underrated bands of the anarcho scene) in the bass-driven heaviness, the pounding relentlessness of the tribal drumming, the simple efficiency of the riffs and the feeling of outrage pervading all the songs. But The Mad Are Sane may even be better. To add some catchiness to the rather martial nature of their sonic intensity, you will notice some tuneful guitar tunes here and there, just to show you that, indeed, the band actually spent some time and thoughts writing these wondrous songs. I already mentioned the nail-eating male singer, but in addition there was also a female one, with a very pissed off, shouting voice, not so far vocally from early Sacrilege or Solvent Abuse. Basically you have two top notch vocals. This demo would have been the ultimate anarcho grail if the singers had been working in the trade-off style rather than the "you do one song and I'll do the next one" style. So basically, you have four songs with the bloke and three with the girl. It still is amazing, but punk-rock is sometimes like tag-team wrestling: a good spectacular move involving the two wrestlers of the team can be more effective.

Like Exit-Stance, and like most of the Mortarhate roster really, The Mad Are Sane seemed to have been heavily into animal rights, as two songs, "Animal crimes" and "Waiting for the day", deal directly with that topic. "World in action" is about the destruction of the environment, "Tract" is about violence that pervades society, "Dying church" is an anti-religious piece and "Neither seen nor heard" is about the business of backstreet abortion. In fact, that song is a little disturbing as it could also be read as an anti-abortion song, but since that seems highly unlikely given the context of the band, I am assuming it is not. I do hope I am not wrong here. I mean, pro-life anarchopunk does sound unlikely. I almost decided not to post this record because of that last song. Could this come from this fringe of the  animal rights movement that is against abortion because they feel it is wrong to harm a life? This theory seems far-fetched, given the members were spiky-haired 16 year old anarchopunks...

From what I understood, this early line-up of The Mad Are Sane didn't exist for very long and the band only played but a handful of gigs. There was a second demo recorded in 1985 with a very different line-up including members of Self-Abuse (both bands were from Bournemouth) and Confession of Sin. That second demo is by no means a bad effort but certainly pales in comparison with the scorcher that is "Reality". The Lp can still be found quite easily and it was released on Abused Records, a label that only released records from Self-Abuse apart from this one (I'm assuming it is also run by a Self-Abuse member).

The Mad Are Sane    

"Slave to convention: A tribute to Doom" compilation cd 2007

Bands like Doom are to punk-rock what beer is to drinking.

Some people merely enjoy having a cold beer on warm days, others drink vast quantity of beer but are not bothered with the quality, and then you have the beer experts who can actually describe the tastes of many different ales and lagers, finally you have people who don't like beer but at least respect it as a worthy beveradge. The same could be said about Doom: the first category hardly listen to Doom but can enjoy a couple of songs at a gig or when really drunk at a mate's; the second category listen to a lot of Doom-type bands but can't really be arsed about the actual quality or even the identity of the bands; the third category include people who know all the records, the recording dates, the line-up changes, they are able to look at Doom and their works critically and are undeniably elite Doom-lovers with a PhD in crust-punk; people in the last category don't give a damn about Doom but at least recognize that it is a quality band, respectable and honourable, just not to their liking. If you don't fall in any of these categories, there are two possibilities: you either have never heard about Doom and I am about to change your life or you clearly are reading the wrong blog and I encourage you to get a life. Seriously, get ouf of my blog.

I generally have mixed feelings about tribute records for several reasons. Bands are often content with merely covering the song without bringing anything new to the table thus making the record a bit tedious to listen to and basically a poorer version of the original songs. In addition, I have seen tribute records with absolutely no information about the bands included or even with hardly any mention about the band that is being paid tribute to (I am thinking about the "Discharged" cd here). But do not despair as there are also really good tribute records, like the two recent (well, relatively) Amebix tributes (the Japanese one and the Balkan one) or the Conflict tribute "Barricades and broken dreams" which exemplify how it should be done. Granted, all the songs were not that great but they aptly reflected the passion that the covered band inspired to the participants and you had some comments from actual members of Amebix and Conflict which made the record more relevant and interesting. Fortunately for you, "Slave to convention" falls in the "good punk tribute" category.

Don't expect too much originality in terms of music on this record. Although there have undeniably been several different periods in the life of Doom with variations in song-writing, sound, musicianship or production, the power of Doom relies on a formula. I would argue that the repetitiveness of Doom - especially early Doom - is one of its strong points. It is a force hammering you again and again with unabated sincerity. Doom took the relentless power of Discharge, Discard (certainly the strongest influence of the band in its infancy), Totalitär or Asocial, added the crusty gruffness (probably more a matter of context than of intent) and the anarchopunk anger and aesthetics. As I mentioned, the Doom sound evolved throughout the years but still, and as the latest brilliant Lp shows, they nevertheless always sticked to the Doom formula, so that for all the different records, and if I may use a witty tautology, Doom will alway be Doom. And thanks fuck for that. Really.

There are 29 bands included on the compilation and I suppose that it would be a boring read if I were to describe each of the songs individually. The bands that took part in this project all belong to the crust/d-beat/scandicore subgenres so don't expect ska versions of "Police bastard". Unsurprisingly, mosy of the covered songs are from Doom's Peaceville days, although some bands also picked songs from "The greatest invention" (my favourite Doom records because of its tension), or from the splits with Hiatus, Selfish and Extinction of Mankind, so it's not 29 covers of "Police bastard" or "Exploitation" either. The strong point of this compilation lies in its international spectrum as you will find bands from the U$A, the UK, Germany, Peru, Japan, Sweden, Poland, Spain, Chile, Canada, Cyprus (yes, Cyprus!), Mexico, Brazil and Italy. In addition to being an ode to world-wide punk-rock, "Slave to convention" includes bands rather "famous" bands like Phobia, Besthöven or Cluster Bomb Unit, but also obscure ones whose contribution to the compilation is actually their sole appearance on a proper record like Aposynthesis, Hollow Scorn or The Indecents. Apart from the Desobediencia Civil song that was recorded in 1998, all the bands recorded their cover especially for this compilation sometime between 2006 and 2007. Not only this but all the bands provided some artwork specifically for "Slave to convention" as well with band and recording information. Funnily enough, three bands did a spoof of the Doom logo, well let's call it an aesthetical tribute, with their own moniker: Ruin, Filth of Mankind and Warvictims. Now that's a labour of love, isn't it?

My personnal highlights include the old-school crust rendering of the mighty Alehammer and the criminally underrated Filth of Mankind, the dual-vocals crustcore attack of the great Accion Mutante, the vintage d-beat punk of Cluster Bomb Unit (with Julia on vocals), Besthöven and Ruin (who have never sounded more like Cracked Cop Skulls than on this recording) and the angry crusty anarcho sound of Autonomia and Desobediencia Civil, a band I specially deal with sometime in the future. Despite unequal production between the songs (some of them must have been taken from rehearsal or live recordings which accounts for some sloppiness), it is on the whole a very pleasant listen and a great way to get familiar with previously unknown bands. In my case, I was really quite impressed with Aposynthesis from Cyprus and wish they had done something else (they get extra Doom points for their Doom/Aposynthesis studded jacket done especially for their piece of artwork).

The booklet is good too and provides an exhaustive Doom biography as well as some words from Stick. It also shows a lot of original Doom artwork, some old flyers as well as some pictures but I hope you have a good eyesight because it's all printed extra small. "Slave to convention" was released on Helvetet Records, a Peruvian label responsible for records from Los Rezios (I am pretty sure the bloke doing the label also plays in Los Rezios), a Warcollapse discography and re-issues of old 80's hardcore bands from Peru like the fantastic Autopsia or Kaos. Basically a label worthy of your interest.

Are you ready for almost one hour of Doom worship? You'd better be.

Slave to doomvention