MOBCHARGE "Self-titled" tape, 1997

Well, well, well. Unless you are as thick as a log or you got into punk just last week after watching Turnstile's latest video (if you haven't and if you are above 20, you might want to abstain, it's unsurprisingly absolute dross), this review will be about a d-beat band. They called themselves Mobcharge for a reason and didn't want to mislead the punters: "Mob" because Mob 47 and "Charge" because Discharge. Life can be simple sometimes. Of course, form the perspective of 2026 such unsubtle linguistic combination meant to appeal to the members of the punk sect are not, by any means, unusual. Just think of all the Dislickers, Shitcontrol or Wolfcharge of this world and the staggering need to "refer to" that plays such a huge part in modern DIY hardcore these days. It could be seen as a global movement that extends far beyond the punk wasteland. Are we Stranger-Things-ing punk-rock and thus ourselves? Is it reinvention or musical cosplay? Should I care as long as the D is good? Should I stop dicking around and get to it already?

Mobcharge was a project based in Spain, around Barcelona (the band's address is located in Barna indeed) active in the mid-90's but they somehow crawled from their grave in the late 00's too - no doubt due to popular demand. If you have been around and care to dig a little you will realize that the mobchargers have been involved in about as many bands (if you can call some of them "bands") as you have had showers since Covid. The band proved to be one of the many sonic ideas of the Becerra brothers Tonio and Chico who played in the excellent old-school DIY grindcore band Violent Headache which I have always rated highly and is exactly my kind of grindcore: punk, non-technical and cave-compatible. Mobcharge wasn't the insatiable brothers' first attempt at beating the D in an orthodox fashion since they had already done Angry Mob a couple of years prior starting Mobcharge. While the moniker was not as Dis-oriented, on their crowing "glory" 1996's The Genocide Contiues Angry Mob sounded arguably even more like the most faithful Discharge followers. But that band, in an even more primitive form, was in fact created as a two-piece in 1989 by the aforementioned infernal duo (before singer Jordi joined in 1991 in time for the 100% Nordico tape) and a few songs can be found from this period. In a time when so many bands buy pedals and struggle to sound raw and crudo, this earliest Angry Mob recording proved that you just have to be motivated, possibly bored, punky teens to achieve the quintessential, genuine, stripped down Dis (granted, Spain already had a tradition of rough, chaotic, angry hardcore bands in the 80's so it was not illogical or that much of an anomaly).

But let's get back to Mobcharge a band that relied on a very similar basis and walked the same ground as Angry Mob, namely the first d-beat wave and 80's Swedish hardcore (I was once told that at that time in Spain, in the late 80's/early 90's the term used to refer to what we now call käng was "el ritmo Sueco"). Beside the Becerra brothers (Tonio on the guitar and Chico on the drums), Mobcharge included Avellano (who was also growling in Proyecto Terror at the time) on vocals and Peña (who did L-ctro Pills with the three scoundrels) on the bass. This Mobcharge tape was released in 1997 and included the band's second (B side) and third demos (A side) recorded in 1995 and 1996 respectively and if you are interested in the band's even rawer first recording adventure you can find songs off the first demo on a split tape with Anti-Clinex if you dare (yet another scandicore project from the Becerras with an unfortunate but ultimately pretty funny moniker).

So yeah, there is a lot of dis love on these demos, the earlier one being expectedly a bit more direct and rawer, although to the uninitiated they will just sound like a lot of noisy bollocks anyway. Fundamentally Mobcharge - and indeed Angry Mob - should be seen as pertaining to the first d-beat wave, that pivotal time in the 90's when vintage Discharge (let's pretend 1984 and beyond never happened) turned into a passion with a legitimate blueprint and its own subgenre with its strict and admittedly limited set of specific rules. In the present tape you can hear some demo quality early Dischange or Disclose and some 90's Uppsala käng like Time Square Preachers but the recordings also convey a rawer 80's hardcore vibe like Shitlickers or Violent Uprising (and let's throw MG15 for the sake of it). Very angry-sounding and highly self-aware at the same time with covers of Varukers, Shitlickers and Discharge if you need to be reminded of what's happening. The kind of d-beat bands that you just have to play on tape if you know what I mean. This one was released on HFN/IMA (a small label run by a member of Grito de Odio) and Squeal Records. In 2008 Mobcharge recorded again and two years later a full Lp entitled Apocalyptic Horror was released by a handful of labels. The band had certainly not gone emocrust but if it delivered the typical goods, I miss the rawness of the early stuff as any self-respecting nerds should claim.

Let's get real, Mobcharge is for the diehards but they, along withAngry Mob (these people do like mobs, don't they?) did pave the way for the typical Spanish raw d-beat style that bands like Destruccion or Regimen de Terror today went on to repeat and popularise although it might have been an indirect influence. At the end of the day, Mobcharge belonged to this category of bands I call "posers detectors". If you see a so-called self-proclaimed d-beat fan covering his or her ears when Mobcharge is playing then you know they are either an undercover cop or worse a fucking poser. In both cases to be disposed of as fast as possible. 

Charged Mob  

PROFOSS "S/t" tape Ep, 2018

Sweden. The only country in the world where toddlers are lulled to sleep with the Mob 47 double cd discography and teenagers have to learn all of Zlatan's punchlines for their high-school finals (of course, I will stick to the first proposition of the theorem in this review). I have been told by a renowned anthropologist (also known as my mate Paul) that a common rite of passage for Swedish teens includes listening to the same d-beat song, relentlessly, until studs grow out of their backs, thus being deemed an adult ready to take on the big bad world and attend punk festivals. Sounds pretty legit to me. He also told me that an ancient 80's punk mating ritual was to sing the lyrics of Asta Kask's first three Ep's for a whole week standing under the window of your betrothed. The recipient of these horrendous serenades often went insane and it was not uncommon to see the singers being attacked by wolves because they were often really shit singers. This does make one shudder and I think we should all be thankful for the disappearance of such inhuman and cruel customs and glad to welcome modernity with its more progressive practices of dick pics or toxic dating apps. I am still partial to a bit of Asta Kask though.

So yeah, Swedish punk it is then. Profoss (meaning provost in English) was a rather short-lived band from Malmö belonging to the long käng hardcore tradition, that specific brand of fast, hard-hitting, raw punk music spawned by post-Discharge hardcore punk acts like Anti-Cimex, Shitlickers or Mob 47. It would be overambitious to do a comprehensive history of what quickly became its own hardcore genre (and I may not be the most qualified for this to be honest) but undeniably, not only did the style always maintain its level of popularity nationally (quantity often matching quality), but it spread progressively to all parts of the world throughout the following decades. I sometimes thought of the early examples of the genre as being conceptually more furious, faster versions of the Varukers (who came to life a little before), meaning a Discharge-influenced punk sound but harder. I don't see, however, proper käng bands as d-beat bands - although the common overarching Discharge influence somewhat makes the qualifier unavoidable. Both subgenres are close cousins and inbreeding is not rare but the distinction must be made in terms of scope, d-beat bands relying solely on Discharge and on bands relying solely on Discharge while käng bands work on a wider array of bands. If you want to be a pedant twat during parties, feel free to find a poor innocent bastard and proceed to explain to him or her all the crucial artistic differences between Meanwhile's d-beat, Warcollapse's crust and Diskonto's käng. It always goes well.

One band that has seemingly never been as popular as they are today is Totalitär. There are, I think, several reasons why the band (who ironically played very few shows) reached a widespread cult status. The riffing has to be the main one as Totalitär's guitar player always came up with riffs that were a bit more complex than your usual dischargey scandicore ones but often proved to be catchier and more rocking without being rock'n'roll (if that makes sense). As a result, the songs can be more memorable and have a wider appeal than, say, Svart Parad's primitive writing. Totalitär's sound is dynamic, energetic, raw but palatable, aggressive and angry but not brutal and their discography is solid and consistent when most other 80's bands folded after releasing just a couple of Ep's "back in the day". I myself prefer Anti-Cimex's impact or Mob 47's unparalleled energy but Totalitär's indisputable hooks and hardcore essence make them a genuine classic punk band. However, there were very few strict Totalitär style bands up until the 2010's. Even during the 90's when d-beat and crust solidified Discharge as Sweden's favourite flavour, I cannot think of any band sounding significantly like Totalitär. There were, to be sure, bands with rocking riffs (like Uncurbed for instance) and bands with a distinct raw käng sound (notably in Uppsala) that could be said to have a Totalitär influence (like Abuse maybe) but none that were primarily Totalitär influenced. Enter the 2010's and bands like Profoss.

For once France was not late to the party and in fact might have had a good hand in getting the table ready with Bordeaux' Gasmask Terrör's early 2010's recordings (and to some extent Architects of Death from 2008) showing clear signs of consummate Totalitär love. Things had been cooking for a little while though and a band like Skitkids significantly heralded what was to come while Fy Fan certainly started to piece it together. Swedish bands did not dick around for long and Malmö's Infernöh showed everyone how it was perfectly done and it wouldn't be far-fetched to claim that to this day Infernöh's totalicore remains the benchmark. Unsurprisingly Profoss had a member in common with Infernöh, Jona who also played in the aforementioned Fy Fan and it was recorded at Blakklodge Studio that is run by Jonas another members of Infernöh (it seems to have been a fairly popular name for people from that generation). Perhaps surprisingly, two members of Terrible Feelings, a band I personally really enjoy but I know many dislike. Their bad. 

What makes Profoss so good and one of my personal favourite Totalitär style bands is how they managed to balance the riffing style and the hoarse furious vocals you're bound to expect in this template with a pummeling production that confers a relentlessness reminiscent of '84 Anti-Cimex or 90's Swedish d-beat bands. As a consequence the recording sounds absolutely unstoppable and the expertise is second to none. The band even dared to include two mid-paced numbers (one very Uncurbed-dining-at-Totalitär while the other is a top notch Discharge scorcher) for the kids to mosh and go crazy in the pit while middle-aged punks stand at the back with their arms nodding. There is one additional song on the tape version (released on Pissed Off Records, a Malaysian label that released materials from Fy Fan, Crutches or Tarantüla before this one) so that even if you own Adult Crash's vinyl version there would be some benefits for you. It's unfortunate that Profoss did not soldier for long and I would have loved to see more goodness from a band that epitomised raw and potent Swedish hardcore.

Profoss       

FARCE "S/t" demo tape, 2017

This is somehow a stimulating one to review for Terminal Sound Nuisance as Farce firmly belonged (I assume they are no longer active) to the hardcore scene - X's are optional but felt - rather than the comfy anarcho/crusty one my magnanimous self is used to promote here. At the end of the day it's all punk, innit? So why the need to create divisions? A fair point but then isn't the context as important - if not more in many cases - as the text itself? We often tend to think that context always creates text (or music) which is obviously the intuitive approach but that would be disregarding the performative power of the act of creation that sometimes escapes and gets rid of its creators. It would be far-fetched to claim that Farce's rather humble demo tape reflects such philosophical matters and I guess that what I really want to say is that Farce come from a hardcore background but their music appealed as much to the spiky crew as the athletic one (let's put it that way). 

Were it not for their cover of Doom - "Police bastard" no less than the band's most notorious and iconic song - I do not think I would have paid much attention to Farce, not because I dislike the music a priori, but precisely because the people from Farce are from a different crew and I can be close-minded (like my coworkers like to say when I confess my utter indifference to vocoder music). I make it sound like every subgenres is its own tribe with its council and its code of law that does not really mix with other tribes - be they rival or allies or just totally alien. Actually maybe we do have tribes or factions - it would be the appropriate term - that don't really mix, especially in large cities where you can afford to have this sort of artificial divisions. In smaller towns, everybody just go to "the gig" whatever the genre (beside monstrosities like skacore or shoegaze). It's not as complicated. 

So basically I almost missed this very fine tape because the members of Farce were and are involved in bands like Game, Shrapnel, Arms Race, Violent Reaction or Obstruct - all bands I am not hard or muscular enough to listen to - and because the tape was released on Quality Control HQ, a very hardcore-oriented (in the US sense of the term) label I don't follow closely for its lack of hairy logos. It does not mean that I don't like some of the bands and it certainly doesn't mean that I don't go see them and support them. I did go to the Damage is Done festival last year and although, to be honest, it was for Framtid, seeing groups of grown men doing the two-step dance (Macarenacore?) and waving their arms like dysfunctional helicopters was a right laugh and some of the bands were objectively very good. As I said, different codes of behaviours are attached to specific punk factions, and mine is often more concerned with taking shit speed, nodding drunkenly to an average Discharge clone and discussing the bourgeois habit of taking showers while still Instagramming patches. All much more respectable and very noble habits, right? 

But let's actually get to the tape. So why would both a healthy jumping straight-edge 35 year old hardcore kid and what can only be described as a stumbling human-shaped pair of crust pants love Farce? Because they proudly relied on the classic mid-late 80's UK hardcore sound of bands like Heresy, Electro Hippies or Ripcord and maybe even furious raw hardcore bands like Asocial or G-Anx (without the trippy bits) and whether you worship Siege and early Agnostic Front or Deviated Instinct and Sore Throat we can all be friend and mosh - respectfully and caring for wimps like myself - together. "Let's all be friend! Means to an end!" and all that. The tape has 8 songs in 11 minutes, the production is direct and gives the impression that it was recorded in 1987, the songwriting goes straight to the point, the pace is mostly of the fast and furious variety but you have some mid-paced moments to keep the grindcore crowd away. Just good, solid political hardcore punk. The label logo on this release has been turned into an homage to Icons of Filth's aesthetics, tasteful fan service I am sucker for. The brilliant artwork was done by Nicky Rat who, with his distinct style, has been working with tons of, often successful, bands since then. I wish Farce had had an Ep in them but that was not to be.

This silly writeup is dedicated to Ola - from Farce and Quality Control HQ - for obvious reasons. 

Farce

LASTSENTENCE "Solitude" tape Ep, 2017

Alright, I'm back. It would be something of an exaggeration to claim that I'm back "from the dead", although it would certainly make me sound really cool and I'd become the "Phoenix of Crust" which would definitely boost my online popularity and the status of Crustus Immortalis would probably increase engagement on the blog (whatever that means). The closest from the Hades I have been to since the last post was when a pizza delivery guy almost ran me over last week though. So no, I just had things to do - "IRL" as twats say - and lacked time to sit on my arse and write far too enthusiastic words about unlistenable music that few very devoted people love as much as I do. Am I happy to be back? Indeed, old bean, indeed. What I am trying to eventually achieve through Terminal Sound Nuisance is still not quite clear, beside offering something to read instead of a like button and a click culture, but I keep getting back to it anyway. They say that the journey is more important than the destination but then you often find on inspirational posters in people's bathrooms so it is difficult to take seriously. Quixotic I presume.

I won't be doing an actual series for once and will just write about recordings that I like or that I find interesting, the only common attributes being the sacrosanct tape format. The material difference between a demo tape released in 1992 and another one twenty years later is absolutely huge although they are both technically punk tapes. Once the most relevant cheap DIY format, ideal in its very nature for its convenience in order to share and spread your music, has the tape become something of a romantic punk shibboleth, a material tribute to a golden era, the format almost as important as the music, seemingly carrying a message by itself? Still, tapes have remained relatively cheap and you could argue that most people interested in our little niches have always owned, or rather never stopped owning, a tape player anyway so that the contemporary trendiness enjoyed by tapes do not matter that much. It must be different for the people who are too young to have lived in the original era of tapes. How do they see tapes? After all, it was never a relevant format to them, they were born in the mp3 era and I don't see many bands releasing cdr's either.

All this to say that I will be writing about tapes without any real unity of time and place even though I realize that, for all the criticism, I myself have been buying quite a lot of tapes in the past 10 years - more than ever before in fact - so that we will not go too far back in time in general (with delightful exceptions of course). And because I was dying to deal with something completely different to the last series about Japanese crust compilations, the first installment will be... a fucking "Raw-noise mangel attack" from Osaka. I picked it at random and yet I am back right where I stopped. I suppose it says a lot about my tape collection.

Lastsentence (the spelling possibly picked in order to differentiate themselves from the legions of preexisting Last Sentence) can be said to be one of those bands that fans of the subgenre are acquainted with and enjoy to a well balanced, reasonable extent, but that people with a casual liking to Osaka noize will very likely be totally oblivious to. Why bother with Lastsentence when you have Ferocious X? Well, precisely. If you cared to bother with Ferocious X then why not get an extra slice of goodness from the same crew? Think of Lastsentence as the third band of a "3 crasher mangel acts for the price of 2" hardcore punk deal. The band has been going for a while now, made up originally of members from Devastated Goes, Nationstate and Ferocious X (duh) with a first demo released in 2008. The band was a different animal at that time as they had a female singer (Oda from Nationstate) and the music was much more distorted, very close to Ferocious X actually (duh again) as their Beginning of the Closed Mind can attest. By 2011, the sound changed and guitar player Nabe took on vocal duties. Rawer and not as distorted was the guitar and the band focused more on the heritage of Frigöra and early Gloom, the space between them, rather than the "wall of noise" school. It was the right choice because not many bands go for that raw distorted Mob 47 vibe and the energy is contagious when it's done well in a pummeling mangel fashion. 

On this 2017 recording, recorded at the infamous King Cobra Squat, a new guitar played got recruited but the sound recipe remains the same with songs that will fit right with your usual Frigöra-holidaying-in-Osaka morning routine. Lastsentence do well what they set out to, with gusto, and even if they are a humble Osaka "raw-noise mangel attack" and will not shatter the earth crust, it is not, by far, a bad spot to occupy. It is in fact a brilliant tradition to proudly represent. Since 2018 (I think?) the band has had Jacky Framtid on vocals (the drummer Aladdin actually joined Framtid earlier) and he does the job with obvious passion. The Solitude tape Ep was released on Doomed to Extinction Records, a label with more than a passing fondness for Japanese crusty hardcore that I warmly recommend if you like your punk obscure and noizy (the label had released a split between Lastsentence and Tokyo's Voco Protesta two years before that tape). This will appeal of course to the completists but the average Swedish hardcore fan will dig this too.

Solitude

Last Night a D-beat Saved My Life (part 5): ANGER BURNING "When" Lp, 2012

In all this global mania for Discharge, it would be fun to make a list of bands that picked a Discharge song as their moniker. Well, "fun" might not be the right concept here. To some, this very activity would sound like a continuing nightmare that could involve the possibility of a relationship's destruction while to others it would be the most romantic thing ever. I can think of Fight Back from Croatia; two Decontrol from England and Canada; Protest and Survive from Poland; two Realities of War, from England and Japan; one Visions of War, obviously; Mania For Conquest from the States; Hell On Earth from Slovakia; Final Bloodbath from Japan and even one Four Monstrous Nuclear Stockpiles, from France, a rare band that managed to blend d-beat and humour without being corny. And did I mention bloody Meanwhile? You see, we're having so much fun together! Yay.

And of course there is Anger Burning from Sweden. They did not go for my favourite Discharge song (by far, I think "Anger burning" should have been called "Requiem for good taste") but on the When Lp they could be considered as one of the best Discharge imitators of the past 20 years, a much coveted spot indeed. If you want to be very anal about it, and you know I do, When is one of the best tribute to Why, a sentence that when spoken aloud sounds either like the ramblings of a very drunk man or some brilliant comment on postmodernist literature that will make academics scratch their chins in awe and type frantically on their Macbook. But when a proper punk hears it, s/he just knows and this knowledge is precious and makes one feel part of a worldwide conspiracy or a soap-dodging sect as my mum would rephrase it.

Unsurprisingly Anger Burning were from Sweden - land of Discharge love where the government forces innocent children to sing the whole Fight Back Ep at school in defense of their future - and played between 2007 and 2016 (a respectable run) with its members arsing around in other hardcore bands before and have been since. Ernst and Simon were together in Assassination (a traditional rocking käng band), with the former playing subsequently in Panikattack and recently Bombardement and the latter fronting grindcore veteran act Infanticide and Parasit (up until 2016 I think) and dicking around on the bass (like with Anger Burning) with noisepunk loonies Sex Dwarf. As for Vidar and Cederick, the former would go on to play in Anti-Metafor and Svaveldioxid and the latter in a lot of bands that I have never heard of but must belong the metallic hordes judging from the covers (or they could be Russian ska bands in disguise, who knows?). Resumes do not really mean anything, fortunately for me, but they at least indicate in the present case that the listener is dealing with a serious band who does not take the worship of Discharge lightly and if Anger Burning's discography is pretty solid (the Warcharge Ep on La Vida Es Un Mus and the split Lp with Discover come recommended), When stands as the dischargiest work, the apex predator of Discharge love's foodchain in the early 2010's.

I hear you ask: why and where is When so close to Why? I won't even mention the title because I (mostly) respect the intelligence of my audience. But let's take a look at the song titles, most of which refer directly to Why: ""Leftovers of war" instead of "Visions of war", "Ain't no war without bastards" instead of "Ain't no feeble bastard", "Is this a solution" for "Is this to be", "What can you do about this system" for "Does this system work" (and "You take part in creating this system" off Fight Back) and of course "When reprise" (duh, I know). There are a lot of plain nods to Dischagre lyrics as well that would be too tedious to list. The golden nugget might be the song "Where are our rights" that could, or rather must, be referring to that elusive Discharge song entitled "Where's our freedom" that appeared on an Ep bootleg called Live in Preston that included an early live recording from 1980 with this mid-paced song that never made it on vinyl. This one is really for the nerds. 

Stellar is the production, primal but very dynamic and angry, highlighting the speed of the early dis beat. The guitar possesses the exact right tone but it had more reverb on Warcharge for instance so I suspect the guitar player toyed with his setting so as to sound as close to 1981 Bones as possible and as for the bass lines, they snake their way through the whole 13 minutes (Why was 14 minutes and 21 seconds long so Anger Burning are a little short). The vocals however are very different to Cal, a man whose barks have always proved to be difficult to resurrect as many a shower can attest, and the singer went for his own raspy style, closer to the traditional käng style, which probably confers more aggression to the songs than if he had forcefully "Cal-ified" his voice. Of course the band went for the classic Discharge font and put the moniker and the record's title in the same spots as Why. The war-themed black and white cover itself reminds me of Disgust's The Horror of it All... but there might be a close comparison.

It doesn't seem relevant to drop names of other d-beat bands who tried hard to sound just like Discharge in the 90's and 00's but I cannot think of any that sounded as close to Why as When does. Here we have to think in terms of record instead of band and try to isolate When and take it on its own. Therefore if Anger Burning may not be the absolute Why-era Discharge clone, When might very well be the aptest copy of Why ever. This wonderful album will speak to those of us who love the worshipping, idolizing side of d-beat, the meticulousness of which would impress the best 17th century oil-painting copyist. This was released in 2012 on Rawmantic Disasters (the label's fifth release) and Truemmer Pogo and can be found for a very decent price.

When when when but when

An adventure in split Ep's! I have no gun but I can split: PISSCHRÏST / FRAMTID "Hardcore Detonation Attack" split Ep, 2009

This will be the last Ep from the 00's to be included in this series which you hopefully enjoy, at least enough to warrant a decent read while on the toilet. Since I haven't decided on the - certainly smaller - selection for the following decade (the dreaded 10's) there will be some wait before the next installment, especially since I am fucking off on tour in April. Yes, I am THAT cool a punk.

Let's end the transitional era of the 00's with something of a classic record from 2009: the Hardcore Detonation Attack split Ep between Melbourne's Pisschrïst and Osaka's Framtid, two rather well-known and respected bands that I haven't covered yet (beside a short paragraph about the latter for their inclusion on the Chaos of Destruction 2 compilation). How long do you have to wait to be officially crowned as a "classic hardcore record" by the Higher Punk Council? It is difficult to say and it really depends on what you mean with "classic". Timelessness is very often narrowly construed and distorted in order to make a work of art somehow fit in and yet transcend at the same time a mythical and mystical post-chronological "time". The notion of a "timeless classic" is therefore meaningless and, more dangerous, it can deprive a work of its meaning (I suppose "time-free" would be more correct albeit as pointless). What we need to think about are classics that are inherently rooted in proper time and space not in an abstract dimension. Does such intellectual brilliance on my part keep people from claiming online that their favourite record of the month is a "classic"? No but it should. Wankers.

Because of its relevance in terms of what used to be before, what was at the time and what would come after, I think this record is indeed a 00's Swedish-styled hardcore classic. Is 15 years a long enough period to be able to look back peacefully at a punk record? Probably and for the sake of this review, let's at least pretend it is. It's certainly been a long enough for me to lose a decent part of my once chivalrous hair.

This Ep was Pisschrïst's last record. The band was a pretty big deal at the time and if I unfortunately never got to see them live (despite two European tours), the reports were unanimous: they were an absolute powerhouse. But I have to admit their records did not totally win me over back then, even though they were getting some airplay and, on a strictly philosophical level, I understood the band's appeal. I mean, they played intense and hard-hitting käng with gruff vocals and a rocking side and their prolificacy reflected their staunch determination: one demo, two albums and five Ep's (three of them splits with Appäratus, Kvoteringen and of course Framtid) between 2004 and 2010. Talking with my wonderful partner about the band's legacy and the reasons why they were so beloved then she pointed out that, at the time, few bands outside Sweden, or to a lesser extent to a then more obscure Japan, played that kind of relentless high-energy riff-driven epic Swedish hardcore with crazy tempos changes. You had of course quite a few bands doing the Wolfpack/Wolfbrigade heavy metallic hardcore thing (like Guided Cradle for instance) but Pisschrïst were different and relied more on the great riff tradition of Totalitär and the relentlessness of Framtid and there just wasn't many bands around at the time that were influenced by those schools of käng. You have to look at Pisschrïst from the 00's perspective to understand their appeal. Nowadays, there are many bands working with the same main ingredients, namely Totalitär-like hardcore and Framtid's take on käng, but not at the time. 

And let's not forget that they were from Melbourne and we did not (or at least I didn't) know that many Australian bands (beside Schifosi, The Collapse and ABC Weapons, a band that had Tim and Yeap from Pisschrïst) but you could sense that something was happening and the band quickly became the embodiment of that new Distort Melbourne scene whose legacy is still going strong today. Talk about a significant band. In addition, Yeap had lyrics in English but also in Malay which was something of a novelty and a breath of fresh air as well. He used to play in Mass Separation back in Malaysia and they did have lyrics in Malay but their popularity was mostly circumscribed to the grindcore scene (I could be wrong though, they did have a split with Kontrovers after all, so it could be relative). The status of Pisschrïst was bigger, they had records on Yellow Dog, then an important label. They also allowed people to discover Appäratus through a split Ep - these days a fairly established scandicore band but back then an unknown Kuala Lumpur act - and by extension it made me curious and drove me to investigate further the great noize that was being made in places like Malaysia, Indonesia or Singapore in the 00's. So on the whole, I think that is what makes Pisschrïst a "classic band". It was not just the music. 

The three songs on this Ep are, by far, my favourite. The band sounds absolutely unstoppable and relentless here and never has their dynamite blend of Totalitär and Framtid sounded so ferocious. The production is rawer, closer to what noizy Osaka bands thrived on, and really highlights the drummer's frantic style full of rolls and crazy changes and the raging vocals. This is close to perfection and one can only imagine how insane a full album of Pisschrïst with that particular production would have sounded like. After the band folded, Yeap would keep playing in solid noizy bands like Krömozom, Nuclear Sex Addict or the well-respected and very active Enzyme and started to run the very good label Hardcore Victim. A busy man. As for Tim he played in the Aussie version of Nuclear Death Terror, ExtinctExist and Jalang.

On the other side of the split, you've got three songs from the almighty supreme Framtid, a band that has, without a shadow of a doubt, earned its reputation as a "classic band" in every sense of the word. The band is rightly revered and their name almost always accompanied by such adjectives as "intense", "furious" and "deafening". To be able to witness Framtid perform live with their customary ferocity can be considered as one of the five Pillars of the Punk Religion, an obligatory acts of worship for proper believers. 

It is fair to say that the band's popularity and mystique grew with time because more and more people got access to their music and because of their impressive longevity given the genre they have been engaging in since 1997. I first came across them sometime around 2005 thanks to a mate of mine who burnt a cd including several bands I was looking for on it, among which he added Framtid's Under the Ashes (there was still space on the cdr and I suppose he just added the thing thinking it could do no wrong). For some reason, the band did not leave too much of an impression on me at that time, by no means did they sound unpleasing but I think I just liked the other bands on the cd better (as I remember there might have been Hellshock's Shadows of the Afterworld on it which, at the time, was unchallengeable anyway). Beside Framtid were at the very end of a cd that was already packed with hard-hitting stuff and the position does affect a first listen's appreciation. I should also point out that I was not really that much into Japanese hardcore bands in the 00's and mostly indulged in their brand of metal crust more than anything. I missed the first train on this one.

Basically it took a good few years for me to really get and more accurately feel what Framtid were trying to create through maximizing and magnifying the hardest brand of käng in order to turn it into a real native Osaka style: the crasher käng transformation. Yes I have just made it up. But still, it's precisely what Framtid achieved through the use of several elements: the - now iconic - insane and thunderous hectic drumming (curtesy of Takayama who also played in Zoe) in order to amplify the songs' savagery, the trademark Osaka crust guitar distortion of Jackie (from the fantastic Crust War label) and hyperbolic gruff but highly antagonistic vocals. When first confronted with the Framtid's sound, one is quick to think that this is a pummeling hardcore chaos (not a bad thing at all in itself) but it is deceptive because closer attention reveals how in control of this chaos the band is. Their real achievement may lie in this fruitful paradox: they are masters of chaos always on the brink of being overtaken, they occupy that liminal space that makes them so impressive .

Framtid have alway claimed that 80' Swedish bands like Bombanfall, Sound of Disaster, Crude SS and of course Svart Parad (they picked their moniker from a Svart Parad's song, although they did not that framtid means "future" in English, which is lucky, it could have meant "hangover" or something) and this primitive, if not primal, cave käng sound is the basis but as I said they infused it with the Gloom Osaka dementia to create a unique wild untamable beast. The three songs included on the split are classic Framtid, recognizable in a heartbeat. The production may not be as insanely heavy and devastating as on Under the Ashes but it confers a rawer edge which suits the genre and the Ep format. One of the best hardcore band of their generation, no question about it.

This is a great split released on HG Fact with brilliant artwork on both sides, just a great moment of punk music. The title Hardcore Detonation Attack is fitting indeed. 

Hardcore detonation attack!!!

An adventure in split Ep's! I have no gun but I can split: BESTHÖVEN / BETON "Different wars same victims" split Ep 2009

I did not realize how long Besthöven's discography was until I started writing this Pulitzer-level masterpiece. I was of course aware of the band's fecundity (it could more accurately be referred to as "a solo project", although Fofäo dislikes the term, or oxymoronically as "a one-man band" but then how do you even define what "a band" really is and what qualifies as one?) but not quite to that extent. I understood that I had not even listened to a lot of Besthöven's body of work. In general, I do check the band's new releases because I often like what I hear and because they are often split records a befitting format for the genre. But then, as you would, I get lost in that endless maze of new d-beat and käng bands that bandcamp and youtube have turned into and end up almost overdosing on war songs, cheap solos and studded jackets and basically quickly forget about what I have just heard, like a goldfish. But I suppose that's pretty much what modern kids have to deal with: fighting the desire to indulge in an infinite supply of cultural distractions in order to keep a shred of attention span. It is, like finding love without using cheesy filters for your profile picture, a losing a battle in 2024. 

It seemed fair to include a Besthöven work in this series since Fofäo (the obsessive Doctor Frankenstein to this monstrous project) has been contributing his limitless enthusiasm - bordering on the maniacal - for primitive d-beat raw punk (aka the "DIS-CIMEX style") to many shared records. With bands like Disclose (an achievement in itself), Warvictims or Disease. Or indeed with Beton. The format fits the music to a tee. Besthöven's story is quite fascinating and inspiring. It started as your usual noisy punk band in the early 90's but turned into a very prolific one-man affair in 1994 (Agitate did an interview with the man in 2006 that you can read here) which is pretty impressive indeed given the rather strict template Besthöven works on. Depending on your philosophical stance on dis-music, you will see the task as either piss easy because you consider that it's always the same song anyway ("who cares if you already used the very same riff 27 times, it has always worked and it's not like you have a demanding audience") or as very challenging since it is difficult to do the same thing on an on again without losing the passion, dedication and a sense of inspiration. If anything, Besthöven and its longevity, whether you like and rate the music or not, is an undying testimony to the validity and relevance of d-beat and käng as genre and aesthetics and an affirmation that it can be an actual way of life. Still bollox but still here.

This is not to say that all Besthöven records are exactly alike but Fofäo's work ethics have not changed: the goal is to produce raw and unrefined hardcore punk. The influence of Anti-Cimex always prevails of course but most of the 80's Swedish hardcore bands are invited to the table and in recent years I sense that Disarm and Avskum were regular guests especially with Fofäo's very distinctive vocals. What I love about them is that they are shouted and angry, respect the obligatory flow and prosody but still maintain some rough-hewn tunefulness like in the two aforementioned käng classics (Avskum's Gunnar is the master of such a vocal style) adding some gruff melodies and, dare I say, emotions. It's not as brutal vocally as what you could expect but I always felt Besthöven's approach was the right one in this case and it makes the band easily recognizable. 

The three songs on this split Ep are typical of what Besthöven do on a good day which is exactly what you want. Straight-forward and raw galloping d-beat käng with a purity and an orthodoxy that is both admirable and a little scary. I get a 90's dis-vibe on this one, there is a lot of Disclose-meets-Diskonto-at-an-Avskum-karaoke-night here here more of an 80's. It's difficult to call yourself a fan of the D if you don't own at least a couple of Besthöven records and many are fairly to find.

On the other side, two songs of Beton (meaning "concrete" just like in French for once) from Bratislava await the listener. To be quite honest, I mostly grabbed this split Ep for Beton (although I am always up for some Besthöven) as I am a bit of a fan of heavy crust punk from Central Europe and they are certainly up there when it comes to delivering groovy Swedish-inspired hardcore heaviness. I would not say I really missed out on the band. When they first came to life in the mid 00's, I remember downloading their 2005 demo on a blog (from crust-demos probably) and being pleasantly surprised. Well, surprised might not be the most accurate term as even though I did not know current bands from Slovakia, there was no reason for the country to be deprived of smelly punks keen on making a crust racket when neighbouring Czech and Poland definitely had their fair share of this strange species that baffle anthropologists to this day. So when I first bumped into Beton, they basically made sense even before I listened to them and because their take on the genre was rather akin to that heavy dark vibe that characterized 90's and 00's crust bands from Central Europe, Beton felt very natural.

Prior to that 00's generations, the one Slovakian band I was significantly aware of was Nonconformist from the Eastern town of Košice. It would be a lie to claim that I am fully conversant with the band's discography - on other occasions it is a lie I would certainly embrace - but their Open Your Eyes Ep from 1994 is a cruelly underrated jewel that fans of female-fronted anarcho crust-punk should revere. Still, despite strong suspicions, I was pretty clueless as what had been and was happening there but the arrival of Beton, Deadissexy (I absolutely loved their demo of cavemen käng crust) and Roxor, whose 2006 demo was an equally convincing heavy crust effort, was pivotal. You had your Slovakian crust Big Three. But then things grew kinda quiet (Beton did release a split Ep with national grinders Čad in 2007 though) and it wasn't until the late 00's/early 10's that Beton and Roxor really started to record and release things. But as I said, caught in the constant flux of novelties, I did not pay enough attention to what they were up to until a few years ago when I took the time to.

When Beton reformed in 2008, they turned into a different animal, more powerful but still feeding on things of the D, more accurately the leaves that one can find on the Scandinus Crustus tree. By that time the band had absorbed three members of the aforementioned Deadissexy and their first endeavour in the studio with that team was devastating indeed. The two songs included on this Ep are perfectly executed examples of what heavy and dark metallic crust-käng should sound like. Use the mean metallic hardcore side of late Anti-Cimex (the song "Konvoj" is actually a tribute to them) and early Wolfbrigade as your dow and the dirty crust vibe of Warcollapse and Mass Genocide Process as your filling and serve warm with a can of lager. The two songs do exactly what they are supposed to do and I love the fact that the production manages to highlight the heaviness and the raw aggression as well. Of course the choice to sing in their mother language also adds to convey the dark anger permeating the songwriting. A really good job.

Both bands are still going, Besthöven doing what Besthöven do and Beton evolving into something more metal-oriented. This was as collaboration between several labels: the local Totalitarianism Still Continues, I Feel Good (from Britanny!), Rabia Contra el Sistema from Spain and Dist & Confuzed from Sweden.   

BESTHÖVEN vs BETON

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

An adventure in split Ep's! I have no gun but I can split: CONTRAVENE / SVART AGGRESSION "S/t" split Ep, 2000

The first time I saw the Contravene logo I thought it was a chicken or maybe a fat water fowl or common pigeon. It was a little bewildering. Even back then, in 2003, when my doomed quest to know everything there is to know about crust, anarchopunk and patches was still in its infancy, I already knew that there were only a couple of bird species that punk bands were legally allowed to use if they wanted to earn the bitter respect of their peers. There was the dove for the anarchopunk bands, a symbol inherited from the original 80's waves and popularized by peace-loving soap-dodging teenagers like Omega Tribe, Alternative or The Iconoclast and then re-adapted by countless crust bands like Nausea or SDS (Japanese crusties certainly love their dove). The use of this bird is something of a prerequisite in those genres if you have an anti-war song (more likely you'll have at least seven of them) and while no doves fly here in the real world, they certainly do on punk shirts.

The eagle is also an acceptable punk bird, but more of an aggressive, threatening, majestic one, sometimes used as a patriotic symbol if you are unlucky enough to be American. Some neocrust or blackened crust bands use it often. I have to say that Tragedy's take on the eagle is particularly striking and, unsurprisingly enough, it has been a popular logo. Vultures can be used as well, often in the stenchcore or metal crust imagery in order to reflect war, desolation and death, the vulture is the bird that comes when we're all already dead and we have effectively committed self-inflicted extinction. Lol.

Chickens on the other hand have never been popular punk birds for obvious reasons. It looks thick, it cannot fly with any sort of grace (when it can at all), it is certainly not threatening in the least. And to most people it symbolizes food. So why would Contravene use it at all? It did take a couple of years and a friend's compliment for me to realize that the band's logo was actually and logically a dove. I had a Contravene badge (and still do I think) with the logo because I loved the band and did not mind enduring the mockeries and ridicule in relation to wearing a chicken on my jacket. And then that friend told me something like: "Cool dove logo mate" which made me understand that it was, in fact, a dove but a short-winged, featherless one with a strange goose-like neck. But a dove nonetheless. I guess. Stupid me, I can see the dove perfectly now.

I was a big fan of the band in the 00's (I may have overplayed A Call to Action to be honest) and while I still listen to Contravene from times to times I cannot say they move me like they did back when I still had all my hair. I do see the band as a genuine 00's anarchopunk classic however and I cannot think of any other that sounded quite like them. The Phoenix-based unit were quite prolific too with one Lp, two Ep's and two split Ep's under their vegan belt in only six years (between 2000 and 2003 actually) so that if you were into DIY political punk at that time you would have heard of them, even more so since they toured in Europe in 2001 (or something? I was too busy listening to streetpunk dross in 2001 and missed them like a bellend). In addition Contravene were from Arizona and while areas like Portland, New York, Minneapolis or any Californian shitholes were deemed "cool" and would attract punters regardless of the bands on stage, Arizona was not exactly the trendiest punk place and that made them a little more special in my eyes as a result. They were very outspoken politically, very serious, very passionate and supported revolutionary ideals (there is the obligatory political text about multiple oppressions with the Ep) and it made them quite inspiring in a lot of respects. They had that kind of youthful energy and belief that matter and their lyrics are every bit as relevant today, sadly I must add. 

And well, they were quite unique musically too. Not perfect and listening to them carefully and critically again, there are bits that don't quite work but I don't think it really matters because they had all that sincerity and they did strive to create their own brand of anarchopunk (to an extent, it is not like they went all experimental and played the guitar with forks like The Ex did) which makes them remarkable. Their side of this split is made up of one long song, recorded in early 2000. "Stand up and resist" is classic Contravene in all its glory. It opens with a sample of a political speech then proceeds with a rather melancholy and melodic, mid-paced, short introduction before unleashing the dark and heavy crusty riffs with a singalong chorus, then some sort of metallic-yet-melodic instrumental moment, then back to the fast crust riffs and then, as an epic conclusion, the same arpeggio tune as on the opening is back this time with more dynamics and catchy poppy backing chorus. Contravene were great at telling stories with their songs, that were often quite long for the genre, through the use of introductions, conclusions, twists or transitions and on this number it works flawlessly.

They have often been compared to Nausea, probably because of the strong shouted female vocals, but they were more tuneful and versatile. They definitely belonged to that 90's wave of female-fronted US anarchopunk of classic bands like Antiproduct or Mankind? but they were also heavier, metallic and crustier like the aforementioned Nausea and even European bands like Homomilitia (the fact that some members from the band also played in Misanthropic and Sea of Deprivation accounts for the metallic sound). What made them really stand out was their surprisingly melodic poppy moments reminiscent of Civilised Society and even Chumbawamba or Omega Tribe - I love anarcho-cheesy and Contravene sometimes did go full out which can scare some eway - although the production is always on the heavy side. It might be too melodic for the crustier-than-thou and too heavy and metallic for the lovers of traditional anarchopunk but in the end that was what made Contravene who they were. One of the most relevant anarchopunk bands of their generation.

On the other side Svart Aggression were a perfect choice for a split with the Arizonians, full of significance and meaning. Hailing from Kalmar, the band is mostly known nowadays (and by "mostly known" I mean that I have one mate locally who knows the band because they did do a split with Kaaos, which is pretty brilliant) for their connection with Protestera with whom they shared two members in the early days. One year before Operation, a criminally overlooked angry Swedish anarchopunk band, officially folded, two members of the band formed Svart Aggression. In 1999 Protestera, basically the progression from Operation, started and both bands sounded very similar in the beginning, fast and angry 90's aanrchopunk, pretty much the same people under a different name. While oft forgotten when one meditates about 90's Swedish hardcore, crust and d-beat, Svart Aggression certainly deserves to be rediscovered, if only because they were a little different and did not quite fit the orthodox Distortion Records template.

In some respect Svart Aggression unintentionally stood for some stylistic transitions that took place between the late 90's and the 00's in Sweden as some bands started to add different influences to the otherwise fairly classic scandicrust recipe. The furious and savage käng attack is present with the cracking song "Mördare" and its traditionally pummeling fast d-takt and epic crunchy hardcore riffs, not unlike Tolshock maybe, but there are also heavier elements with a down-tuned melancholy vibe like on the introduction to "Skit system" and its slow d-beat. Pretty much how the so-called neocrust wave would work just a few years afterwards but I suppose it was more the dark Wolfpack influence speaking in this case. The dual male and female vocals really gives the band that classic anarchopunk feeling that already prevailed in Operation - and many other bands in the 90's and early 00's - and on the whole you could see Svart Aggression as a sort of Swedish version of React. I love how the two vocalists work together as Emma has a very peculiar way of singing that is almost spoken but still powerful and that balances well with Coffe's raspy aggressive käng shouts. A genuinely great combination. These two songs were recorded in late 1999 during the same session as the five songs that would eventually appear on the brilliant Tänk Själv Ep in 2006 released on Scream Records (although the label does not appear on the backcover, in true DIY fashion, a small promotional flyer from Scream Records referencing the Ep was actually included in the Ep) but, not owning the split with Kaaos, released in 2000 like the present record, I can't tell you if the two songs it has were also taken during the same session. 

This split Ep was released on Catchphraze Records, a label based in Arizona that was responsible for records by Axiom, Inner Conflict and all of Contravene's. The label also ran a small distro that sold DIY tape versions of old, sold-out records that were seemingly impossible to find - to me anyway - and I remember ordering several tapes from them around 2003, notably Sacrilege's first Lp on a very simple dubbed tape with a xerox cover. Needless to say it severely kicked my ass. So thank you Catchphraze. 

                                                                             Svart Contravene