Wesh to Sweden, the Formative Years (part 1): Skitsystem "Allt e skit" compilation cd, 2002

I would love to tell you grand stories about the tormented but powerful relationship I have slowly built with Swedish punk music throughout the years, potent tales that would inspire or empower you to be all you can be. Some proper moving shit with misunderstandings, breakups, reconciliations and Anti-Cimex covers. I would love to tell you that the first Swedish punk band I came across was Mob 47 or Wolfpack or another such respectable hardcore band that an older friend would have taped for me because that was how knowledge circulated and passion was shared in those pre-internet days. Of course, it did not happen like that and reality, once you remove the gratifying coat of storytelling, is often not so inspiring after all and probably not worthy of a smarmy self-help book complete with ugly mugs and weird dentitions on the cover. The first punk band from Sweden I heard about was Millencolin through Punk O Rama Vol. 2, a cd I got in late 1996 at a local supermarket for 29 French francs (yes, a supermarket, though it has to be said that they used to have decent rock sections in those days). I was 13 and had absolutely no idea that punk-rock was an international movement. In my tiny teenage mind, there used to be punk bands in England before but not anymore as they all died out like dinosaurs but because of drugs and all contemporary punk bands were from California and lived in "the Epitaph house" or in the vicinity and if there were any foreign bands (meaning not from North America) they basically only wanted to be American though they perhaps did not realize it yet. I was not the brightest kid in the neighbourhood as you can see, although I suppose such delusions also say a lot about the marketing powers and tactics and the worldview they generated in the 90's. 

 

So yeah, Punk O Rama. Of course all the bands were American apart from Millencolin who were from Sweden. Sweden... The only things I associated with the country until then were Abba (no thanks) and Henrik Larsson (yes please) and I remember being completely baffled by the inclusion of a Swedish band on the cd. I mean, Sweden? Come on! How utterly preposterous! What was next? Bloody Finland? It was all very exotic but, from my 13 year old wisdom, I somehow convinced my incredulous and ignorant self that, surely, Millencolin were a romantic exception. It is almost endearing to be that wrong I suppose. In the following years, I quickly discovered that not only were there more than a handful of Swedish melodic punk bands but that Swedes were also very present in all the other realms of punk music. By my 16th birthday I was heavily into wearing oversized bondage trousers, purple combat boots, disgraceful homemade patches and being chased down by bigger kids who, for some unfathomable reason, did not understand how magnificent the Casualties were. By then, Swedish "streetpunk" bands like Voice of a Generation, Bombshell Rocks or Guttersnipe were favourites of mine, however I was still blissfully if tragically unaware of Swedish hardcore. Perhaps it would be more accurate to say that I knew of Swedish bands playing US-styled hardcore but had no idea that the country had developed its own style of hardcore or that there were other styles of hardcore punk outside of the hegemonic tough guy American one for that matter (still a very common and unfortunate misconception to this day). The truth about scandicore hit me hard but progressively during the year 2002 through a local radio show broadcast on Radio Libertaire called "ça rend sourd" - meaning "it makes one deaf" in French - run by older knowledgeable punks with a strong liking for international hardcore, grindcore, crust and extreme punk music in general. To be honest, although I religiously listened to the show on every other sunday nights and did enjoy it, a lot of the bands they played were completely lost on me because my ear was still very much uneducated and unskilled to this type of music. Their scholarly references to Italian hardcore, Spanish raw punk or German powerviolence sounded deliciously cryptic and coded and it completely opened my eyes to the stylistic and geographical diversity of hardcore punk and to the importance of context and intent. And hearing Mob 47, Diskonto or Moderat Likvidation on the radio gave me a massive kick up the arse. 

 

 

How to cast suspicion on your own release...

 

The early 00's were an intense period of discovery, revelation and musical epiphany for me, one that I remember vividly and with nostalgia as everything sounded subjectively new and fresh at the time. In a very short time I became aware of the wide world of DIY hardcore punk and the numerous subgenres that composed it and, from this day on, trying to understand the making and the reproduction of hardcore subgenres in their context and native habitat has become my lifework, a bit like Dian Fossey but with Discharge fanatics instead of gorillas and without a biopic yet (but that goes with being murdered I presume so I keep the faith). My evergrowing love for crust punk made a frontal reunion with Swedish hardcore, one of the genre's inspirations, both unavoidable and highly fruitful. The series Wesh to Sweden* will be a presentation of seven records of Swedish hardcore - be it of the käng, mangel or d-beat variety, with the crust cursor more or less pronounced - that I deeply engaged and connected with during those formative years of intense discovery (2003 and 2004). The selection might look a little random, subjective and illogical as it is based on the purchases I made at the time on distros in order to explore and accumulate enough knowledge and as a result it was linked with the availability of records at that particular time and in that particular place and with my personal whims. 

 

 

One of the first Swedish hardcore cd's that I bought and that really won me over was Allt e skit from the mighty Skitsystem, from Gothenburg. I ordered the cd (because it was cheaper to ship than vinyl and my budget was limited) while I was living in Manchester as part of the student exchange program Erasmus, in late 2003. I had made friends in my hall of residence with a lad who was really into hardcore and metal and he often recommended bands to me. I remember him giving me local distro list that was updated every trimester and mostly carried extreme metal music and grindcore but also had some heavy hardcore and crust. In the list were Skitsystem's Allt e skit and Wolfpack's Allday Hell which he said were both amazing bands and compulsory listenings. Trusting in his better judgement, I sent a letter to the address indicated on the list with a £20 bill and a week later I was able to play Skitsystem and Wolfpack in my rather bleak and very small room (I had had the brilliant idea to bring a cd player along), in awe at the brutality of the music. Out of the two, Skitsystem prevailed in my opinion, probably because they sounded crustier and that was what I was after at the time and for this reason I played Allt e skit to death and can pretty much sing along in mock Swedish to all the songs (human waaaaaaste). I suppose that, in retrospect, Skitsystem is an obvious band to love, a genuine classic of what we mean by Swedish crust. What particularly impressed me at the time was that they sounded very heavy, menacing and aggressive and yet, at the same time, very simple and direct. The music had the desperate power of a charging rhino with a grudge but also felt quite accessible in its composition. Little did I know that Skitsystem was a band conceived by hardcore-loving metalheads as a tribute to that brand of heavy Discharge-inspired hardcore, namely käng, that had become so popular in the 90's in Scandinavia and whose best instances could be found in the releases of Distortion Records. To me, though the recordings were a bit old, it was an active band destroying everything in its bloody path.

 

Contrary to a lot of their peers of the time, Skitsystem had those heavy and dark down-tuned textures and a raw and heavy production closely associated with old-school Swedish death metal, which made sense since the original lineup was made up of members of At the Gates and Sarcasm, so that one gets the impression that, while it does fit with the crusty Swedish hardcore tradition, it nevertheless sounds like it is played by rabid death metal cavemen (I say this now but, truth be told, when I first played Allt e skit I had never even heard of Entombed and death metal was about as foreign to me as space rock). In spite of the intentional brutality of the sound and the punishingly simple riffing, you can tell that the boys had fun writing those early Skitsystem songs and many chorus are wonderfully anthemic ("Human waste", "Allt e skit" or the smashing Asocial cover "Revolt" specially come to mind and I challenge you not to sing along). To be fair, I had not played the cd for a while and had forgotten how fast, intense, energetic, mean and just unstoppable it sounded like. Genuinely headbanging stuff. I recall being blown away by the extremity of the vocals, how angry, direct and hoarse they sounded like, how the singers sounded like they were on the brink of rupturing their vocal cords just for the sake of expressing their blackest hatred of the shit system and outrage at the world's injustices and that just really spoke to me and still does. In retrospect, the sheer pummeling power and forwardness of the music, the dark down-tuned metal sound, combined with the extreme vocals of the two singers (who perfectly work together) and a d-beat drumming of mammoth proportions make Skitsystem a definitive highlight of the 90's Swedish wave and a fascinating instance of hardcore punk infused with death metal in terms of textures and sound instead of structures and composition like a fight to the death between Disfear, Extreme Noise Terror and Unleashed. It comes as no surprise that, to this day, Skitsystem is still a major reference for any band keen on taking the scandicrust path. 

 

 

Although it would not be far-fetched to call Skitsystem a crustcore band, it is not completely true either, not in the same sense as Warcollapse, the other great Swedish crust band of the 90's. While WC were much closer to the eurocrust sound of Doom and Hiatus, Skitsystem's roots were strictly located in the classic Swedish hardcore and metal sound which resulted in them creating a hybrid that was distinctly Swedish and could appeal to both punks and metalheads looking for fast, direct, heavy and extreme apocalyptic music. The ultimate compromise of studs and long hair. Allt e skit included the first three records of the band: the Profithysteri Ep from 1995, the Ondskans Ansikte 10'' fril 1996 and the split Ep with Wolfpack from 1997, all originally released on Distortion Records. This was Skitsystem at the height of their primitive power and while their following records still packed a heavy enough punch, they were also a little too polished for my liking and missed that early Nordic cavemen savagery replaced with a more controlled metallic fury. The version of Allt e skit I own was released on Barbarian Records, an American label that was more on the death-metal side of thing apparently, and there are a number of spelling mistakes in the names of the songs that I actually chose to leave as they were so that you get the most authentic experience possible (that's immersion for ya). Another odd thing about the reissue is that you can hear vinyl crackles at the beginning and end of the songs so I guess the fellow behind the label did not use the studio tapes for the reissue but the actual vinyl records from his collection. Added to the statement at the bottom of the backcover stating that "This is not a bootleg. Full royalties paid on this release to band in cash and copies" and to the absence of the label's contact or even logo, I always had the dubious feeling that, despite the warning, it was indeed a bootleg cd. And did bands really get royalties in cash when playing crust music? Now, that was a work option I could heartfully consider. Barbarian Records even reissued the reissue in 2004 with a new cover parodying the typical "singles collection" of 80's UK punk with a mohawked lion wearing a studded leather jacket at the center! That really cracked me up and it shows that for all the dark heavy music, we all enjoy a bloody larf at times. 

 

For opening my mind to the wonderful world of Swedish crust on a cold Manchester night, I would like to address my most sincere gratitude to Skitsystem. Allt e skit!                     

                             

Allt e skit indeed  

 

*about the title of the series "Wesh to Sweden": "wesh" is a slang word commonly used in France by the urban youth. It is derived from the Arabic language and can mean a variety of things like "hello", "what's up", "how are you?", "what!", "fuck" and the list goes on and on. Sorry if the meaning gets a bit lost in translation.

Echoes of Crust: an Anthology of UK Crust 1985-1995

Alright then, let's get back to it and by "it", I mean "crust" of course. 

 

 

 

If you must know the truth, I spent the last month in a secret crust monastery which accounts for my temporary absence from this respectable - without mentioning influential - blog. Not unlike in Karate Kid, but with high-brow punk shirts and tragically more pronounced receding hairlines, I needed guidance about the next step that had to be taken in my quest for the meaning of life, and by "life" I mean "crust", again. In the temple of crust, discipline is strict. Drinking water is banned and has been replaced with cider and anyone caught showering is severely punished, while the hideous sin of listening to neocrust systematically results in public flogging and lifelong excommunication from the Crust Society (you don't want to know what happens if you're caught enjoying shoegaze). During the retreat, one is expected to listen exclusively to old-school crust music - be it of the stenchcore or cavemen variety - and it is required that you pray for long hours each day in the traditional crust position of meditation: barely sitting on a filthy floor with your back against a wall while holding on to a half-empty bottle of special brew and muttering the lyrics of "Relief" or "Drink and be merry" ("Stormcrow" or "Grind the enemy" are also perfectly acceptable alternatives). Only then may the Revelation occur and only the chosen few are able to attain real illumination before prematurely dying of cirrhosis. I came home exhausted but enlightened, with a halo of flies around my head determined to zealously spread the Word of Crust and to convert as many doubters as possible through impeccably curated compilations of UK crust music. 

 

The elaboration of those UK crust compilations was the logical step after our intense coaching session in mastering the proper crust lifestyle, Ten Steps to Make your Life CRUSTIER Starting Today (by the way, I hope you have all become decent soap-dodging noize freaks). The idea behind their making is to offer a fairly comprehensive view of a specific time and place in order to establish and define some descriptive criteria and approach this punk subgenre that has come to be known as "crust" from a contextualised, diachronic perspective that both stresses significant stylistic similarities and reflects a common vibe and tension while also illustrating a diversity in paces, textures and intents that you will not fail to notice. A walk in the fucking park. The selecting process was not an easy one. Actually, the last version of the compilations (several failed attempts preceded, I'm sorry to say) has been ready for two weeks now but I wanted to make sure that, not only did they sound powerful and balanced, but also that they told the right story, that, through my narrative choices, you could get a relevant idea of what crust really is and what it expresses, what cultural moment it embodies, namely the collision of anarchopunk, hardcore and extreme metal in the British soundscape of the mid-80's. The task was extremely fun but also somewhat ambitious and you would be surprised to know how hard I thought about the inclusion or exclusion of some of the bands (Bolt Thrower to give you an example).

 

In the end, you get two compilations of 95 minutes each, thus roughly respecting the classic mixtape format, with 58 bands in total (including bands from the Republic of Ireland) and 62 songs, spanning a decade, from 1985 to 1995. Working with both 80's and 90's bands made sense for several reasons. First, it illustrates how the genre survived and evolved after all the founders called it a day, how the new generation of bands considered and reworked the original crust sound. Second, too often we tend to erect a wall between the 80's and the 90's, retroactively glorifying the former and discarding the latter, as if there were major epistemological differences in the making of punk after 1989, and I believe the transition between the late 80's and the early 90's was very fluid, the major change being the rise of the cd format at the expense of vinyl in the music industry. 

Some choices were delightfully comfortable and picking songs from the undisputed classics of the genre felt strangely rewarding. On Echoes of Crust you will of course enjoy a display of the official canons of UK apocalyptic metallic crust in all their glorious power (Deviated Instinct, Hellbastard, Axegrinder and the likes) that have built the genre on the sound of the two founding fathers, Antisect and Amebix (however, I chose to leave out the Bristol style of noize, though bands like Chaos UK and Disorder certainly played an important role in the rise of crust). The school of cavemen impersonation of raw and furious hardcore punk is also well represented through Doom, Extreme Noise Terror and their enthusiastic followers. You will also find bands that do not really fall under the crust umbrella on this exploratory celebration of crust music such as fast political hardcore acts like Generic or Electro Hippies, metal-punk crossover ones like Sacrilege and Concrete Sox or obscure grindcore units like Grunge or Drudge, all of them delivering songs that nonetheless exemplify that crunchy heavy crust vibe that I am always looking for, hence their inclusion of these compilations. Some would even probably argue that the metallic industrial sound of Sonic Violence or the groovy straight-edge hardcore take of Ironside have no place in the selection, which I can understand, but even unintentional, a crusty vibe does permeate some of their works and, at the end of the day, it also provides some interesting variety to the mix. 

 

The sound quality varies a lot as there are rough live or sloppy rehearsal recordings as well as rather clear near professional production and although I have done my best to equalise and even up the levels (without mentioning that many rips come from my own collection), it was near impossible an endeavour at times even for a computer genius like me. Some songs are actually hard to listen to, but it would feel incomplete to have a crust compilation without a proper sonic challenge (I'm thinking really hard about Violent Phobia and the enigmatic Angry Worta Melonz here), right? I tried as much as possible to select songs or versions of songs that were not too obvious in order to keep things interesting and, perhaps, even surprising.

Massive thanks go to all the bands for writing such great (and, well, even objectively not so great) music. Crust music has always been a massive part of my life and hopefully, through these humble compilations, I managed to convey a real sense of crustness and meaningfully tell the story of the genre. As for you dear listeners, I hope you enjoy this journey into the first ten years of the genre, inside the cradle of crust.  

 

 

 

Volume one: 

 

01. Intro: Antisect "Instrumental" from Live at Planet X, Liverpool, March, 27th, 1987 (London)

02. Prophecy of Doom "Insanity reigns supreme" from The Peel Sessions 12'' Ep, 1990 (Tewkesbury)

03. Bio-Hazard "Society's rejects" from A Nightmare on Albion Street compilation Lp, 1992 (Bradford?)

04. Rest In Pain "How the mighty have fallen" from A Vile Peace compilation Lp, 1987 (Bath)

05. Coitus "Silo 5" from Failure to Communicate unreleased album, 1994 (London)

06. Pro Patria Mori "The question (chains of guilt)" from Where Shadows Lie... demo tape, 1986 (Wokingham)

07. Embittered "Infected" from And you Ask Why? When you've only Got Yourself to Blame tape, 1991 (Middlesbrough)

08. Aural Corpse "Cong" from S/t split Lp with Mortal Terror, 1990 (Middlesbrough)

09. Hellbastard "Death camp #1" from Hate Militia demo tape, 1987 (Newcastle)

10. Depth Charge "Sirens" from Just for a Doss demo tape, 1988 (Birmingham)

11. Generic "The death of an era" from The Spark Inside Ep, 1987 (Newcastle)

12. Sore Throat "Something that never was" from Never Mind the Napalm Here's Sore Throat Lp, 1989 (Huddersfield)

13. Mortal Terror "Release / Horrible death" from S/t split Lp with Generic, 1988 (Newcastle)

14. Napalm Death "The traitor" from Live at the Mermaid, Birmingham, January, 1st, 1986 (Birmingham)

15. Black Winter "Winter armaggedon" from Live at Queen's Head, ?, July, 25th, 1987 (Doncaster)

16. Interlude: Axegrinder "Armistice" from Grind the Enemy demo tape, 1987 (London)

17. Debauchery "Ice of another" from The Ice Lp, 1988 (Newcastle)

18. Deviated Instinct "Scarecrow" from Hiatus (The Peaceville Sampler) compilation Lp, 1989 (Norwich)

19. Warfear "Dig your own grave" from Wild & Crazy Noise Merchants... compilation 2xLp, 1990 (Bradford)

20. Raw Noise "Communication breakdown" from Making a Killing split Lp with Chaos UK, 1992 (Ipswich)

21. Sarcasm "Suppression" from Your Funeral My Party Ep, 1991 (Leicester)

22. Electro Hippies "Acid rain" from The Only Good Punk... Lp, 1988 (Wigan)

23. Doom "Same mind" from The Greatest Invention cd, 1993 (Birmingham)

24. Sonic Violence "Crystalization of despair" from Jagd Lp, 1990 (Southend)

25. Filthkick "Mind games" from Peel Sessions, July, 8th, 1990 (Birmingham)

26. Extinction of Mankind "Confusion" from A Scream from the Silence Volume 2, compilation Lp, 1993 (Manchester)

27. Drudge "Sacrilege" from Suppose it was you / Drudge split Lp with Agathocles, 1990 (Wolverhampton)

28. Gutrot "Hypocrites archieve nothing" from Filthy Muck 10'', 2008/1987? (London)

29. Violent Phobia "Animal abuse", from No Excuse demo tape, early 90's? (Cork)

30. Bolt Thrower "Concession of pain" from Concession of Pain demo tape, 1987 (Coventry)

31. Antisect "New dark ages" from Leeds 2.4.86 Lp, 2010/1986 (London)

Echoes of Crust 1

Volume two:

01. Intro: Amebix "The moor" from Live at the Station, 1985 (Bristol)

02. Policebastard "Traumatized" from S/t split cd with Defiance, 1995 (Birmingham)

03. Atavistic "Maelstrom" from A Vile Peace compilation Lp, 1987 (Whitstable)

04. Saw Throat "Inde$troy part 4" from Inde$troy Lp, 1989 (Huddersfield)

05. Blood Sucking Freaks "Raining napalm" from Those Left Behind tape, 1994 (Bradford)

06. Life Cycle "Indifference" from Myth & Ritual Ep, 1988 (Neath, Wales)

07. Domination Factor "Judge not the cover" from Dominated Till Death tape, 1987 (Tewkesbury)

08. Corpus Vile "Waste of life" from I'm Glad I'm not in Danzig & I Bloody Mean that tape, 1991 (Bristol)

09. Anemia "Axe the tax" from Live at the Tyneside Irish Center, August, 14th, 1991 (Newcastle)

10. Extreme Noise Terror "Deceived" from Are you that Desperate? Ep, 1991 (Ipswich)

11. Kulturo "Unknown" from Live at Planet X, Liverpool, April, 13th, 1991 (London)

12. Oi Polloi "Resist the atomic menace" from Outrage Ep, 1988 (Edinburgh)

13. Genital Deformities "Crouterposs / Dark sky" from Shag Nasty Oi! Lp, 1989 (Birmingham)

14. Ironside "Suffocation" from Endless Struggle compilation 2xLp, 1995 (Bradford)

15. Screaming Holocaust "Fanta babies" from Cancer Up Your Bum Ep, 1990 (Ipswich)

16. Interlude: Deviated Instinct "Possession (intro)" from Terminal Filth Stenchcore tape, 1987 (Norwich)

17. Rhetoric "To no one in particular" from Consolidation compilation Ep, 1987 (Norwich)

18. Senile Decay "Isolated (in your private cell)" from S/t split Ep with Canol Caled, 1989 (Gateshead)

19. Killer Crust "Random intimidation, anywhere" from S/t split Ep with Undersiege, 1989 (Dublin)

20. Angry Worta Melonz "Third world" from Rehearsal tape, April, 5th, 1986 (Norwich???)

21. Sludgelord "Rillington sunrise" from Unreleased recordings, September, 1989 (Huddersfield)

22. Axegrinder "Lifechain" from Hiatus (the Peaceville Sampler) compilation Lp, 1989 (London)

23. Hellkrusher "Dark side" from Wasteland Lp, 1990 (Newcastle)

24. Dread Messiah "Mind insurrection" from Mind Insurrection Ep, 1994 (London)

25. Acrasy "Pain" from Deviated Instinct's Re-Opening Old Wounds cd, 1993/1990? (Birmingham)

26. Sacrilege "Stark reality" from Demo 2, February, 1985 (Birmingham)

27. Excrement of War "The ultimate end" from S/t demo tape, 1992? (Birmingham)

28. Grunge "Lemmings" from Gore Maggots tape, 1989 (Aberdeen)

29. Concrete Sox "Speak Japanese or die" from Crust and Anguished Life compilation cd, 1993 (Nottingham)

30. Mortified "Dreary" from Drivel (the Grungalogic Beer Theory) tape, 1991 (Honiton)

31. Amebix "Chain reaction" from The Power Remains Lp, 1993/1987 (Bristol) 

Echoes of Crust 2

Ten Steps to Make Your Life CRUSTIER Starting Today (step 10): Deviated Instinct "Re-Opening Old Wounds" Lp, 1993

This is the last part of Terminal Sound Nuisance's UK crust series and I suppose it will be a very suitable final chapter since the mere uttering of Deviated Instinct irrevocably makes life (and I mean any form of life) much crustier. It is just a scientific fact, trust me on this one. Although the two recordings included on Re-Opening Old Wounds are anterior to the other segments making up this sharp, urban and edgy guide to the appropriate modern crust lifestyle, I decided to tackle this Lp last since it is the only retrospective compilation of the series. I had this idea that listening to the genre's originators Deviated Instinct in the last position could cast a meaningful light on the barrage of crust music you have been served so far, as if it could somehow be used as an ontological tool to isolate and extract the very essence of crust, the mythical source of energy that, according to barely legible fanzine scripture from the mid-80's, could confer to any average punk incredible moshing powers as well as complete mastery of the arcane arts of crust pants making. Myth or reality? Does crust really have an essence? Is it a common sonic and structural template shared by the bands or more of a tension and a vibe allowing for some gruff creative width, a way of playing and writing? Or is it just an unhealthy obsession with crudely approximative patches, filthy haircuts and sleeveless jackets, like mummy used to scold?

Of course, I have already written about DI on several occasions (in case you have not noticed, the quest for crust is one of Grail-like proportions on this blog). They have become a fairly well-documented band during the past decade, with a crucial cd reissue of their Peaceville recordings in 2006 and a delicious chapter in 2009's Trapped in a Scene, which, combined with the renewed interest prompted by the band's top notch reformation, might make a thorough archeologist survey of their early days a little redundant in 2020. This was not always the case however and when my obsession for crust kicked in in the early 00's, little information was available about DI. The band was seldom referred to and yet, when they were, they were always presented as "crust legends", which was confusing for two main reasons: first, I did not understand how a "legend" could not have some sort of discography available for young punks with a thirst for knowledge like myself and, second, I had no idea that crust had its own lore and legends and it instantly conveyed an aura of epic mystery to the genre while reinforcing its legitimacy in the process. The chase was on indeed.

Like many of my generation, the original metallic crust wave of the mid/late 80's seriously got my attention upon the release of Hellshock's Only the Dead Know the End of the War in 2003, a work described as "PDX stenchcore" (the nod was lost on me at first) and often compared to British bands like Sacrilege, Hellbastard, Bolt Thrower or indeed Deviated Instinct, bands I had never heard of. In retrospect, I realise that such parallels, without looking at their accuracy, were mostly drawn in order to create an old-school crust halo around Hellshock and locate their style into that early Peaceville tradition, renamed "stenchcore" for the additional winking tribute. I was already heavily getting into UK crust when this album came out and was desperately searching for all the founding bands of the genre - bands that sadly no one seemed to really know or even care about at all in my hometown - so that the release of the Hellshock album felt like a sign of the punk gods notifying me that, if the way of crust can be a long and arduous, my devotion to the black(ish) arts shall be rewarded. Whereas I easily obtained the first two Bolt Thrower albums on cd, managed to order Hellbastard's In Grind We Crust cd from Acid Stings and somehow managed to procure an homemade tape copy of Sacrilege's Behind the Realms of Madness (courtesy of Catchphraze Records), recordings that proved to be life-changing kicks up the arse, DI's music however tragically remained out of reach. This minor existential setback did not keep me from getting a magnificent vintage DI patch (the splendid visual with the indigenous face and the gun from the Hiatus compilation Lp if you must know) from an old punk who used to distribute Squat or Rot and Tribal War records in Paris and still had a stash of crust patches made in NY in the early 90's that were particularly unfashionable ten years later. It was the first and only time I ever wore a patch from a band I had actually never heard, a shameful, despicable act usually associated with the lowest cast of the punk scene, the incurable inveterate posers, and I am well aware that such a confession might threaten my established reputation but I had to come clean.

Eventually, after months of begging pathetically, a friend of mine with a computer and a good internet connection downloaded Rock'n'Roll Conformity and Guttural Breath and burnt them on a cd. Almost 18 months after reading about DI in the Hellshock review, I finally got to listen to them. Had I been born 15 years after, I would just have had to type "Deviated Instinct" in the youtube search bar and the quest would have ended in a couple of seconds. Still, it would have been a shame to miss on the frustration, the anticipation and the seemingly endless wait that the quest for DI implied, a band that I loved and revered before even knowing and whose music I had to create and play in my head from the few pieces of intel I had in my possession. In the end, when I finally played the cd, it sounded strangely familiar. Perhaps as much as in their music itself, you could argue that DI's legacy lies in their aesthetics. The striking artworks of the band's records (drawn by guitar hero Mid) have informed the visual identity of crust for years and, to this day, they remain the ultimate visual self-representation and reference point of the crust aesthetics. It is of course no coincidence that iconic bands of the 00's metal crust revival like Hellshock, Nuclear Death Terror or Stormcrow had record covers expertly drawn by Mid in the purest late 80's style (on demand, I suppose), so that the referentiality to the genre's foundations is as much about the dirty vibe, tones and the songwriting than it is about the visuals and the organic apocalyptic visions from the most talented originator of the crust aesthetics. Undeniably the appeal of DI (and of other classic crust bands) was both sonic and visual and I would venture that the stenchcore revivalists perfectly understood the necessity to combine both referential dimensions in order to identify totally with the first wave (an ontological creative move that was born with the 90's d-beat wave). Another crucial, if more prosaic, part of the DI testament has to do about their personal look and how they epitomised the crust punk fashion. To this very day, their cider-fueled, soap-dodging, thrash-loving Mad Max rejects impersonations remain potent emblems of the prelapsarian Eden of the crust punk lifestyle and, not unlike the nirvana of stenchcore, I like to think the pursuit of this noble goal is what really matters.

Re-Opening Old Wounds was released in 1993 on Desperate Attempt Records, a label based in Louisville responsible for some wicked records during its eight-year existence by the likes of Apocalypse, Chaos UK, Hiatus or Disrupt. I remember reading that Old Wounds was very much an initiative from DI's singer Leggo, as he had already worked with the label for the release of Filthkick's Hand Crushed Heart Ep in 1991, which presumably accounted for the inclusion of two uncredited Acrasy songs (a superb metal crust band Leggo sang for in 1990 while living in Brum) on the cd version and, unfortunately, without the involvement of Mid, for a rather ugly cover that did not include any original artwork or represent what the band was about at the time of the recordings (in fact, I would argue that the absence of any piece of Mid's art makes makes Old Wounds a record containing DI songs but not a proper DI record if you know what I mean). However, this Lp is still the only way to listen to the songs off the Terminal Filth Stenchcore demo (minus "Distance", which was recorded before anyway, and the joke song "Clean core killer"), originally recorded on October, 21st, 1986. It was the band's second demo and the first one to really showcase the filthy metallic influences that were massively creeping in the UK punk scene and that DI would be known for. I first came across Terminal Filth Stenchcore through a cdr I ordered from Nations on Fire sometime in the mid 00's and it was, as they say, love at first riff. In Trapped in a Scene, Mid expressed disbelief at the popularity the demo still enjoyed and at the undisputed cult status the new generations religiously conferred to it. To some extent, I understand his amazement. Indeed, if you play Terminal Filth Stenchcore to someone used to the clean productions and expert musicianships so common in extreme metal and hardcore nowadays (or even crust really), he or she will express shock and a very different kind of disbelief at the punk as fuck sloppiness, amateurishness and uncontrolled snotty aggression of the recording. This is filthy metallic PUNK. I would hypothesise that a fondness for the fastest and most intense anarcho bands of the early 80's is required to really get the demo, bands like Antisect, Legion of Parasites, Exit-Stance, but also Chaos UK or Disorder, but with the addition of a nasty thrash metal edge played with a youthful punk energy. I can listen to those songs every day and never get tired of them (I tell this from experience). Even though the production is super raw, the songs retain the catchiness of snotty punk and are all memorable thanks to, in spite of obvious technical limits, a rather ambitious variety of song structures, proper buildups, a sense of narration, two different vocal tones that perfectly complement one another and manage to sound pissed, savage and unpredictable. There are too many highlights for me to list but the melancholy anarcho introduction to "Birthright to subservience", the inclusion of actual religious chant in the primitive tribal crust "Possession prayer", the epic progression of the anthemic "Warmachine" or the crunchy moshing groove of "Cancer spreading" easily come to mind. The perfect colliding ground of filthy anarchopunk and cavemen metal.

The remaining four songs on Old Wounds were recorded on July, 15th, 1987, as part of the so-called Return of Frost third demo (it was never actually entitled that way though), a recording that had seven songs, all of which ended up on compilations. I suppose the whole recording could not fit on the Lp because of the running time but we do have the classic "Stormcrow" from the Consolidation split Ep with fellow Norwich bands Revulsion and Rhetoric, "Return of frost" from the 1984 The Third compilation 2xLp, "Master of all" from the Attack is Now Suicide compilation Lp and "Mechanical extinction" from the Airstrip One compilation Lp (missing are an early, and possibly superior, version of "Rock'n'roll conformity" and "House of cards"). By that time, the band had been joined by Snappa and Sean (on the bass and the drums respectively) and had improved musically. DI enjoyed a thicker, crunchier production this time with an energetic roundness and an organic vibe fitting the songs perfectly. The sense of narration was still present in the songwriting ("Stormcrow", for instance, is a two-minute masterclass in genuinely epic crust) and the structures reflected an intent to create songs that, of course, delivered the filthy crusty metallic punk goods, but also told proper stories and strove to capture the listener's attention through catchy hooks, be it a guitar lead, a spoken word moment, a change of riff or a gruff cavemen chorus. DI's music was still crustier than your favourite festival socks but below the growls, the thrashing riffs and the hardcore aggression, there was always this drive to write good punk songs that you can actually remember and shout along to. By 1987, DI had notably incorporated a fast hardcore thrash influence (furious Italian hardcore immediately comes to mind) to their rocking and raw Antisect-meets-Frost-and-Venom-at-a-punk-piss-up formula. Mid's guitar has a heavy, warm, dirty, organic tone that I am massive sucker for and instinctively associate with the crust sound (especially the bends'), while Leggo sounds like an entranced and vengeful rabid fox looking for a brawl. These four songs are absolute scorchers, defining, genre-making moments in the crust mythology, exemplifying how one can successfully blend rocking metal and fast hardcore without sounding like a jersey-wearing, constipated New Yorker.

Re-Opening Old Wounds, in spite of the excellence of the canonical source material, still feels like a missed opportunity. There is no insert and therefore no lyrics, which is a shame given the clever nature of DI's lyrical content and use of dark and tortured metaphors, and obviously no trace of the original visuals. Just imagine a reissue with a booklet including the visuals from Terminal Filth Stenchcore and from all the compilations that hosted tracks from the 1987 recording session. There was a plan for Agipunk to reissue properly Terminal Filth Stenchcore on vinyl (like they did for Hellbastard's Ripper Crust) but I suppose it fell through. Not many demo recordings can claim to have birthed an actual subgenre and, although the relevance of the term "stenchcore" can be discussed and although bands conceptualising and identifying with the genre only really crystallised in the 00's, there are still today bands claiming to play stenchcore, bands that have developed specific sonic templates that are part of the crust punk world but whose take on crust is more referential, making stenchcore a real subgenre in an analytical context. In spite of their status as "forefathers of crust", DI's actual music was, for a long time, a diffuse influence on subsequent crust bands (perhaps because of the different phases in the band's history, reflecting diverse shades of crust, making them harder to mimic), while their aesthetic stance (the stunning dark visuals and the crust fashion show) and creative posture (filthy punk loves filthy metal) were undeniably more substantial. However recent bands like Cancer Spreading, Zygome, Instinct of Survival, Scene Death Terror or Asocial Terror Fabrication started to openly referred to DI through covers, respectful nods or loving plagiarisms, which I must say is very pleasing to the ear. And did I mention that DI are, by far, the best reformed crust band?

This will make life crustier indeed.

Re-Opening Old Crust Wounds

             

Ten Steps to Make Your Life CRUSTIER Starting Today (step 9): Extinction of Mankind / Warcollapse "Extinction of Mankind / Massgenocide" split Ep, 1994

As time passes and as the global ecological apocalypse looms ever closer, it seems that, not unlike most of the world's wild species, the average lifespan of punk bands has also grown shorter. According to the last estimate of the World Health Organization, a punk band formed in 2020 is now expected to live a total of 800 days, whereas a band playing a similar style in 1992 could live at least 2000 days. Of course, some factors external to the punk scene like global living conditions, economic hardships, dictatorial regimes or postpunk's growing instagrammability have to be taken into consideration when one tries to analyse the transience of modern hardcore bands. Still, the fact remains that many bands split up after just two years of existence (often involving one 20 minute long album, one Ep, one European tour and about ten different shirt designs), before members disperse in order to start new band with a slightly different approach, thus launching a new punk life cycle. The intrinsic shortness of hardcore punk bands' lives is a subject that has been on my mind for a while now and, in spite of my infinite wisdom and invaluable experience, I don't have much to offer to enlighten this process other than the global acceleration and increase of our consumption of cultural goods and the decrease of our attention span, both as audience and musicians. If internet has affected the way we listen and relate to music, it must have changed how we write and play music and form bands. In any case, it is always heart-warming to see bands formed in the early 90's that are still active, still hold the same values and still deliver the same sonic assault, thus showing that crust music can be a potent - without mentioning largely organic - preservative indeed.                 

Today, Terminal Sound Nuisance will be hosting two familiar ugly faces, gathered on the same split record, an Ep released in 1994: Manchester's Extinction of Mankind and Sweden's Warcollapse, the latter being the only non-British band of this crust lifestyle series. The inclusion of this split Ep made sense on several levels. First, it is a way to connect the past - in this case the early 90's, a crucial time in crust development - to the present, since both bands are still playing in 2020 and although WC have not been anywhere near as active and prolific as EOM in the past decade, the latest Desert of Ash 12'' was released in 2019 and is worthy of your attention. Second, in the timeframe that interests us, from the late 80's to the early 90's, the split Ep format grew to become a proper DIY punk staple. The format was emblematic of the period itself as it symbolised the idea of cooperation and was also a lesser financial risk with the involvement of two bands. Just consider the number of split Ep's released in the 90's and 00's that unquestionably belong in the upper level of the crust punk canon and it is utterly clear that, not only did the Ten Steps series dearly needed such a format as a matter of diachronic relevance, but that you should also have a list of your ten favourite crust split Ep's ready in case you are being challenged to a crust joust by your arch nemesis one day (lets get real, it's bound to happen). And finally, you did not get much crustier than EOM and WC in 1993 when they recorded their respective side of the split. 

I have already written about EOM's Scars of Mankind Ep (here) and WC's Crap, Scrap and Unforgivable Slaughter Ep (here), so that I do not really need to tell you about their origins again and the fascinating stories about how and when I got to know them probably don't deserve another round. I often feel as if I am droning on about the same old bands and sanity, or something approaching, dictates that I should avoid literally repeating myself too often. The day I accidentally review a record I forgot I already dealt with will be the last day of the blog and the first of a gofundme page for my retirement party (possibly a massive Discharge karaoke night). But we're not quite there yet and we have a lovely split Ep to rave about so let's get to it. There are several connections between EOM and WC, the split Ep being only the most obvious, and many parallels can be drawn between both bands. As punk bands do, they toured together in Sweden in late 1994 (Counterblast were also invited) and in central Europe again in September, 1995, but far more strikingly, both bands each recorded a tribute Ep to UK punk bands - Ale to England and the aforementioned Crap, Scrap and Unforgivable Slaughter - that included the exact same three bands (Antisect, Discharge and Amebix). If the similar choice of classic bands undeniably reflected major influences, there remains an impression of crust bromance that I find particularly endearing and relatable since, as any faithful believer of crust knows, Antisect, Discharge and Amebix is the official trinity of our cult. The Extinction of Mankind / Massgenocide split Ep was the first proper record for both bands (although EOM had one song off their Without Remorse demo on Loony Tunes' compilation Lp A Scream From the Silence Volume 2) and it proves to be an apt representation of the bands' rawer past selves. 

Recorded in October, 1993, in Middlesborough, the EOM side is made up of three songs, admittedly thinly produced and rather direct in their approach, that nevertheless pack up a right punch. Although beers and fags have affected Ste's voice during his almost three decades behind the mike in EOM, you can still instantly recognise his vocal style and unmistakable flow, tone and intonations, shouted with a lot of power but never yelled or growled, and always very much understandable (if you are fluent in the language spoken "Up North"). You can hear that the band was still young and not totally comfortable and had not really found its own beat yet. The sonic ingredients that defined the early years of EOM are already present however and the Antisect influence is prevalent indeed as the band tries to offer a blend of In Darkness There is no Choice's relentless power and Out From the Void's rocking darkness, an ambitious initiative that EOM probably did not have the ability to realise at that point in time but that Scars of Mankind remarkably did eventually. There are also elements of Anti-System and Icons of Filth in those early EOM tracks, especially on the faster "Overruled" or on the groovy mid-paced moment of "Extinction of mankind", while "Suffer in silence", arguably the best song, reminds me of a cross between early Axegrinder and Hellkrusher. Lyrically, we are on standard grounds with "Overruled" (about systemic control) and "Extinction of mankind" (about humankind's fair treatment of nature, of course) while "Suffer in silence" is a visceral number about domestic violence. Although EOM would significantly improve throughout the 90's, the key elements and the referential nods, that they would build on, polish and grow to be famous for, already informed their early sound. One may also note that they were one of the few 90's UK bands to worship so openly at the altar of Antisect and Amebix and pay such a powerful tribute to the mid/late 80's both in terms of songwriting and visuals (the artworks have always been brilliantly macabre and the band's logo is the equivalent of a Crust 101 art class), and on that level it is relevant to see EOM as an attempt to continue and preserve the whole Antisect approach to punk and a love declaration to the crust greats. In the end, a rather romantic endeavour.   

There are two songs on WC's side, "Massgenocide" and "Scorned by bombfighters", recorded in February, 1993. These two tracks were part of a larger session as two other songs were also recorded on that occasion, "Misery and despair" (which would end up on Tribal War's compilation War Compilation) and "Warcollapse" (included, along with "Misery and despair", on Distortion Records' Distortion to Hell classic compilation of Swedish crusty hardcore). I think it was the first session under the WC name but the band's website infers that a demo entitled Misery and Despair was recorded when they were still grinding under the Earcollapse moniker (a cracking name indeed). Being a massive WC fan myself, I cannot recommend the band's early era enough as it gloriously epitomised the 90's cavemen crust sound, albeit with a distinct Swedish hardcore vibe, and for all their rawness, the early Ep's did not fail to deliver and let it be clear that the Crust as Fuck Existence minialbum from 1995 is a masterpiece of mid-paced metallic old-school crust. The two WC songs on the split are typical of what would become the band's style. The heavy, slow, stripped-down dark crust number, "Massgenocide", points to Doom's slower moments, Döm Dar or even Saw Throat with super gruff and hostile vocals and such slow-paced epic metal-crust numbers would become a WC trademark. The other song, "Scorned by bombfighters", sees WC unleash a fast and pummeling scandicrust tornado upon the listener, somewhere between Doom, early Sauna, Anti-Cimex and Bombanfall, with the deceptively soft introduction cleverly linking it to the previous number and a spoken words moment nodding to anarcho hardcore punk. A clearly fantastic debut from the masters of Swedish crustcore and a fascinating instance of how influences circulate inside the punk scene with a Swedish band influenced by Birmingham's Doom, who were themselves inspired by Discard and 80's käng, who could not have existed without Discharge's fury. Not that many Swedish bands displayed a strong crust vibe in the 90's - be it of the stenchcore or of the cavecore variety - and many (and there were tons of bands) aimed for a harder version of the Swedish hardcore classics. WC, on the other hand, offered a punishingly convincing cocktail of old-school UK crust and vintage scandicore, and their sound, to me, defines what the term "Swedish crust" really entails.   

Both EOM and WC would go on to become genuine references in the world of crust throughout the 90's and 00's. In spite of important lineup changes (the departure of Mass and the arrival of Scoot on the guitar must have been a massive sonic shift), EOM have progressively become that rather unique and distinctive UK crust band with a sound that is both identifiably linked to the old-school crust wave and yet totally their own and there is something that I find inherently respectable, if not heroic and quixotic, in keeping a band alive throughout all these years, especially when they play such an underground peculiar genre as crust punk, surviving all the shallow trends and the endless punk drama in the process. As for WC just play Desert of Ash if you need to be persuaded that they are still up for it and may the crusties of the world hold hands and pray together that it signifies the rebirth of the mighty WC. 

Released on the Swedish label ElderBerry Records (responsible for records by the likes of G-Anx, Tolshock or 3-Way Cum), this is retrospectively a classic split Ep in the sense that, to some extent, it prefigures the greater things that are to come for both bands, although taken on its own as a rather typical early/mid 90's record, it would be far-fetched to call it a crust masterpiece but reasonable to describe it as a solid and promising raw crust work. It is therefore in the light of future events and of the bands' parallel progression that the EOM/WC split Ep makes the most sense.

To be enjoyed with some ale.    

Extinction of Collapse

Ten Steps to Make Your Life CRUSTIER Starting Today (step 8): Coitus "Darkness on Streets..." Ep, 1994

Although not as uncomfortable to wear as that Genital Deformities one, my Coitus shirt remains one of those punk garments that I avoid to sport during family reunions, at work or on Valentine's Day. Nothing wrong with the design itself (I mean, who doesn't crave for gasmask-wearing skulls?), but having "Coitus" and "Fucked in to oblivion" written on a shirt might somehow send the wrong message socially as heads are bound to be shaken in disbelief whilst eyebrows rise judgmentally and loud sighs of disapproval are openly breathed out. However, when one consider that the first incarnation of Coitus, in 1989, was called Eternal Diarrhoea (and apparently had Lippy from Antisect on the bass, the choice of instrument being almost as surprising as the band's moniker), one can be thankful indeed for the terminological change to Coitus as an Eternal Diarrhoea shirt could only have been worn safely at all-male events like goregrind gigs, which is pretty narrow. But let's skip the fashion talk already and switch to the band Coitus, a powerful raw hardcore unit that any self-respecting crusty punk should be, at the very least, familiar with.   

Battered copy because of too many moves (additional punk point)

As foreplays to Coitus, drummer Alien and guitar player Martin had played in the legendary Sons of Bad Breath in the mid-80's, a cult band made up of members of the so-called Hackney Hell Crew, basically a bunch of drunken punk squatters looking like Mad Max rejects making a bloody noizy racket that made Chaotic Dischord sound tame and bourgeois. This tight connection to the punk squatters' scene, especially in London but also abroad, was part and parcel of the identity of Coitus and, as their chapter in Ian Glasper's Armed With Anger can attest, they have unsurprisingly more than a few crazy squat-related stories to tell, in particular when it comes to the brutal tactics used by the police against squatters. at the time. The third member of the early Coitus was Skinny on the bass, an Irish punk who had previously served in Paranoid Visions which accounted for the band's frequent trips to Dublin to record and tour. Martin was quickly replaced with Pato in 1991 for the band's first tape, In Two Minutes You'll Be Smokin' in Hell, that comprised two recording sessions, the first one done in March, 1991, in North London, the second in May, 1991, in Dublin. Pato then left the band and Mik was recruited on the guitar and the classic Coitus lineup was in place.  

If Coitus can arguably be considered as one of the most striking UK punk bands of the 90's and certainly as one of the very best and unique in their field, like too many bands of that decade, they sadly do not really enjoy the cult status they deserve. While swarms of internet-crazed punks idolise any 80's band that barely lasted 18 months and recorded two and a half songs before turning new wave, crucial punk as fuck 90's bands, who kept the flame of DIY punk alive, recorded genuine classics and contributed in the making of networks of punk scenes that we still witness and rely on today, are neglected. Not cool, kids. The first time I read about Coitus was on the distro list of the Nottingham-based Missing the Point sometime in the early 00's. The Coitus' retrospective cd Necrocomical, released on Inflammable Material, was then described, and I am quite sure that those are the almost exact terms, as "Antisect-influenced punk aaarrrghhhhh". Since I was already well into Antisect at the time, almost unreasonably so actually, I promptly ordered the cd but must admit I was a little disappointed, or rather, taken aback by their rocking metallic sound which I did not relate to Antisect at the time (I had only heard In Darkness by then), and it took me to dive into Out from the Void and Peace is Better than a Place in History to understand and enjoy Coitus properly and be able to grasp the significance of their sound. So why - I rhetorically hear you ask - should you need Coitus to make your life crustier then? Well, it is well-established that a flawless and knowledgeable adhesion to the Antisect mystique is a required predicate for the healthy development of one's crust identity but, given the harsh competition in the field, it no longer suffices and it is therefore strongly advised that one also becomes highly proficient in those bands displaying a prominent Antisect influence, like SDS or, in this case, Coitus. And anyway, they were so good that you don't really need a reason, right?

Multinationals, politicians and the army literally raping the Earth in case you didn't get the subtle metaphor. 

Whereas SDS (especially in the early 90's) openly used precise sonic and visual references to Antisect in order to create their own aesthetics and situate their band in terms of relations to the influence of Antisect, Coitus' driving take was very different, much more organic and spontaneous, without referentiality. Coitus took the more rocking, groovy, sweaty side of Out from the Void-era Antisect and built on it with their trademark thundering bass sound, an emphasis on the crunchy dirty metal parts, an obsession with Celtic Frost and a two-fingered attitude. I like to think that if Antisect had kept going in the early 90's and played the same London squats Coitus did, they would have sounded really close indeed. The Darkness on Streets... Ep, released in 1994 on Tribal War Records (UK), was recorded in December, 1992, in Dublin with help from Deko Paranoid Visions, at the same time as their When we Depart... Let the Earth Tremble (tape only) Ep and, in my opinion, this recording sessions stands as the defining Coitus moment (the Submission/Domination tape is stellar too) and an absolute UK crust classic, although the band, to my knowledge did not claim the crust tag. The Ep opens with the anthemic "Darkness on streets", a claustrophobic number of brooding and heavy metallic punk, somewhere between late Antisect, Hellbastard and a squatter version of Motörhead, which is followed by "Total collapse" a beefy mid-paced scorcher that sounds like an old-school crust band covering Poison Idea and, finally, the ultimate Frost-worship song, "Mind right?", which manages to recreate the threatening glamorous groove and the rocking aggression of the Swiss while adequately soiling their sound because that's what punks would do. The production is absolutely perfect for the brand of dirty, rocking and powerful heavy metallic punk the band set out to achieve and I would not change a thing to it. You can almost smell the music on Darkness on Streets... and it is a rotting cocktail of sweat, anger and beer. The band was tight by then - and it really shows - and I especially enjoy how the different vocals - Alien's on side one and Skinny's on side two - blend with and enhance the powerful music but still manage to sound vindictive, desperate and strangely nihilistic and hedonistic at the same time (the long Bukowski quote makes much sense in that regard), like a mad punx choir or something. As Coitus' existence epitomised and as their dark tortured lyrics reflected, punk life was tough but it was both a fighting answer and a means of survival to the urban paranoid oppression and alienation-fueled madness, and few bands could convey this idea as brilliantly as Coitus. In our era of mass tastelessness and punk blandness, (re)listening to the band is strangely comforting.

Following Darkness on Streets..., Coitus recorded the Real Cold Fear Ep, produced by Lippy from Antisect and released in 1996 on Inflammable Material, it was another cracker with the desperate-sounding eponymous song easily breaking the catchiness detector. Skinny moved back to Ireland and was replaced with Keith from Dread Messiah as the two bands often played together, but the band eventually split as the heavy touring took its toll. Mik went on to form The Restarts, Skinny joined Cold War (he died tragically in 2009), while Alien played in Mush with Keith and in Dirty Love with Martin. In 2010, Dublin label Underground Movement released a double-cd discography, Fucked Into Oblivion, including everything the band recorded (apart from the early In Two Minutes tape) and it goes without saying that you should rush to get a copy as it is an essential piece of both UK punk history and crust evolution as well. The last incarnation of Coitus reformed in the 2010's and released two convincing records since, the Fed to Wolves cd in 2015 and a split Lp with the excellent Bulletridden from Bristol in 2018.  

  

Play fucking loud.

Crustness on streets... 

Ten Steps to Make Your Life CRUSTIER Starting Today (step 7): Doom "The Greatest Invention" cd, 1993

Doom is to the common crusty what complaining is to a French person: both an essential part of the identity and a relevant lifestyle, without which life on Earth would just not be quite the same. 

Since introducing such a widely known, iconic band could be deemed as patronising and needlessly superfluous - if not actually offensive - I shall take care not to condescend to my proud educated readers and therefore won't write anything about the band's conception, a birth that has been well documented anyway and does not require my customary written gesticulations. Everyone knows Doom, at least superficially, and judging from the vast amount of patches, shirts and painted logos one can detect at any summer crust gathering, d-beat gig or Lady Gaga video, it is quite obvious that Doom is a popular band, respected by their peers for their loyalty to the DIY punk scene ("In it for life" as opposed to "In it for cash" if you know what I mean), for their political stands and for their genre-defining sound that really has not changed that much throughout the years, thus emphasising their unshakeable faith in the validity of Swedish-flavoured cavemen crust punk. Not bad for a band that just wanted to be Discard and Crudity. 

Doom's '88/'89 era (referred to in most self-important punk circles as "the Peaceville era") is often what most people, guided by the suspect belief that a band's "early stuff" is always the best, will know about them - unless you are actual fan of the band of course. In spite of an impressive discography, and depressingly enough, it seems that too many of us remained stuck at the absolute classic Police Bastard Ep, or even just at the song "Police bastard", quite possibly the most covered - and butchered - crust song in history. If you are playing in a crust band and you have never tried to cover "Police bastard" or "Relief" then you should really start to ask yourself the right questions. It goes without saying that a comprehensive knowledge of the Doom catalog in relation with their lineup changes is paramount to the establishment of your crust credibility and any faux pas could have devastating consequences to your reputation and get you banned from respectable masonic crust circles. Do you want to end up hanging out with that shirtless drunk guy at the front constantly shouting "P...po...police...bastaaaaaaard"? Of course you don't, and in order to join the club of Real Doom Fans, beside a symbolical yearly fee, a critical analysis of some of the band's most interesting works is necessary and this is exactly what I want to provide here for your personal enlightenment: my personal views on what is probably Doom's least popular album (in fact, even the band dislike it), The Greatest Invention. 

Recorded in June, 1992, and released on cd and vinyl on Discipline (a hardcore-oriented sublabel of Vinyl Japan) in 1993, The Greatest Invention was the last recording of the original Doom lineup with Bri, Stick, Pete and Jon. The early 90's were a strange period for the band. In 1989, guitar player Bri had left the band, leaving Doom working as a three-piece until 1990 with Jon singing and playing the guitar. At that time, the band tried to include fresh elements to their cavemen scandicore recipe with the addition of slow-paced, heavy and rocking grungy moments with a bit of a psychedelic vibe. The two songs from the band's fourth demo recorded in those months, "Confusion remains" and "Alienation", were dissimilar to anything Doom had done or would subsequently do. Even though listening to a six minute long Doom song is a rather otherworldly experience, I personally would not say they are bad Doom songs as you still get their typical fast d-beat hardcore moments while the heavy slow moments do confer an oppressive atmosphere. The songs would have required some polishing in terms of songwriting but the idea of blending direct crust with heavy psychedelic rock was anything but poor as bands like Bad Influence, Dazd or Iowaska would eventually demonstrate. What if Doom had kept experimenting with this new formula? Would they have become a proper space crust unit? If you come from a parallel universe where this happened, please feel free to comment below.

In 1992, the band got offered a tour in Japan which prompted the four original members to reform and resurrect Doom for the occasion (the trip was immortalised in the Live in Japan Ep on Ecocentric Records). Considering that Doom have always been a tremendous influence for the Japanese crust scene (from Macrofarge, to Abraham Cross or Reality Crisis), such an endeavour made sense and I am convinced that the tour further strengthened the cult of Doom there, so much so that, almost 30 years later, more than a few Japanese bands still aim poetically and gutturally at sounding like early Doom. Back from their trip, the band recorded the Greatest Invention, a mini Lp which was to be the definitive swan song of the original lineup. The personal (and probably creative) tensions running through the band at that time were important and pervasive and you can just sense that The Greatest Invention was not recorded in a serene context. It is a very dark and edgy album. Of course, Doom's earlier material had a very angry and pissed edge too but, by 1992, they sounded like a desperate band about to self-destruct in an explosion of mean, vicious and hopeless hardcore music. The Greatest Invention is unlike any other Doom records. Not because of the admittedly poor production, but partly because of a substantial change in the songwriting and primarily because it sounds almost nihilistic. 

Although The Greatest Invention has its fair share of classic Doom numbers ("Trash breeds trash" being a genuine hit), it is undeniably the band's most versatile work. Thanks to added effects (like the flanger on the ace "Dig your grave" for instance) and textures on the guitar, the music is openly dissonant and eerie at times, with a lot of feedback and fuzzy distortion altering the mood of the original Doom formula. The more noticeable change lies in the presence of slow-paced, heavy psychedelic crusty rock songs, with the Saw Throat-on-shrooms "Drop out", and especially the nine minute long (!) "My pornography", an oppressive Godflesh-y industrial crust number that sounds about as joyful as the grinding noise of a sinking ship. It is obvious that Doom were not only trying new things musically but also craving to modify the vibe of old, to apply a new varnish to it. You could argue that the nine songs making up The Greatest Invention have a disparate feel to them, that for a Doom album - whose template is officially based on the repetition of gruff scandi-influenced cavecrust numbers with a couple of groovy mid-paced ones thrown in for good measure - it is too diverse and not straight-forward enough. While I agree that the album lacks unity and cohesion (more songs and a proper Lp format instead of a mini would have helped in that regard), the angry tension and raging heaviness permeating the work, whatever the songs' pace, make The Greatest Invention one of my favourite Doom recordings. Just listen to the new version of "Same mind" (only included on the cd version for some reason) and how tormented and pissed it sounds, to the filthy old-school crust vibe of "Dig your grave", to the Cimex nods in the pummeling "Worthless nothing", to the heavy punk cover of the Dead Wretched's anthem "No justice" pointing to Doom's local punk roots beside being one of the band's best covers. In spite of the thin production, all the songs are actually memorable and punishing in their own way and on the whole it remains an incandescent work and an apt farewell for that incarnation of Doom. 

Doom would keep going with a different lineup throughout the 90's but never really experimented as much as on The Greatest Invention, which is also paradoxically their shortest album to date. I tend to see Jon's subsequent band, the magnificent Police Bastard, where he played the guitar and sang, as building on certain ideas touched upon in Doom's 1992 Lp, and, albeit to a slightly lesser extent, the same could be said about Bugeyed, Bri's heavy noise rock project with members of Pleasant Valley Children, so I suppose the desire to write something different had to be expressed anyway. 

The cover is quite striking (but Doom's covers usually are) and decidedly dark with a man being shot in the head and an endless river of weapons (bombs, guns, knives, you name it) flowing out of the bullet hole. Perhaps the name "Doom" (for the first time with the new font they would keep using later on) was never as ominous and apt as on The Greatest Invention. The doom of Doom indeed.   

The Crustiest Invention   

Ten Steps To Make Your Life CRUSTIER Starting Today (step 6): Sarcasm "Your Funeral My Party" Ep, 1991

Yes, you guessed it. Once more, I am going to rave wildly and without any restraint, with an excitement similar to that of a teenage punk upon finding a rusty Blitz badge crushed on a sticky venue's floor, over a 90's band that embarrassingly few people seem to care about nowadays. And, mind you, it won't even be my first time since I already wrote about Sarcasm in 2012 (no less than eight years ago according to my calculator! o-m-g!!!) and yet, in spite of my very positive review of their Brave new World Ep, it saddens me to say that the band has not seen any spike in popularity for the past decade. I have to admit that this horrific realisation made me feel like a crust army general, standing upon a hill and about to charge headlong at the enemy (at, say, a legion of shoegazers), and taking one last look, before unleashing the fury, at his glorious orc-like troops lying in wait behind him and... seeing no one there at all since everybody fucked off because they suddenly all remembered at the same time that they were really into postpunk after all. However, being a resilient bastard basically unwilling to face the truth with a genetic predisposition for Alzheimer disease, I was bound to try again and spread the good word about Sarcasm.

Did you know there was a late 80's Slovenian speed metal band called Sarcasm? No, neither did I. Or a mid-80's crossover hardcore band from New York also called Sarcasm and even humbly referred to as "The Original Sarcasm" on youtube? Well, I did not know them either, and if the rather typical New York hardcore boasting does not come as a surprise, NYC Sarcasm may not have been the first Sarcasm around since the first incarnation of Leicester's Sarcasm had their first run in 1984. If you want more details about the band's story (and you should in fact crave for more details), as usual, a dive into Trapped in a Scene and a lovely cup of tea come highly recommended, but strictly out of crustian charity, I am required to provide at least some intel about the band. At the start, during their existence in the mid-80's, Sarcasm endeavoured to be as noizy as possible and were influenced by the likes of the legendary Skum Dribblurzzz (which they considered as their mentors and even covered) or the mighty Dirge and could therefore relevantly be seen as being part of the noisiest part of the squat-loving UK hardcore punk spectrum that also welcomed such hugely talented acts as Asylum (from Stoke), Eat Shit, No Brain Cells or System Sikness and religiously drank scrumpy at the altar of Bristol's punk gods Chaos UK and Disorder. Sadly, I have never had the privilege to enjoy the noizy chaotic punk sound of early Sarcasm but for some reason but I still know how it sounds: fast and fuzzy and fun and gloriously ear-damaging.

The second coming of Sarcasm took place in 1989 and their subsequent noisy career was well documented with three full Ep's, two split Ep's (with Sanctus Iuda and Wojczech), a split tape with CFDL as well as other demo and tape recordings. Today's post will focus on the band's first Ep, Your Funeral My Party, that was released in 1991 on Rotthenness Records from Sao Paolo, a label specialised in grindcore. The Ep was actually a reissue of Sarcasm's first demo that was originally distributed as a tape at gigs (no idea what it looked like as it is not on discogs) although judging from the crunchy, powerful sound, you would not guess that it was "just" a demo recording (done in only 8 hours!). By the time Sarcasm reformed, singer and songwriter Mark had played the guitar in Extreme Noise Terror (you can hear him on A Holocaust in Your Head and the second Peel Session) and guitar player Barney was formerly in Dirge so you can imagine without too much trouble what the revived Sarcasm sounded like in the early 90's: a noizy and crusty thrash attack.

If maximum crust cred is to be achieved, as we have seen, anything less than a substantial mastery of the stenchcore canon will not do and if you have to spend sleepless nights learning the early Peaceville catalog by heart, then so be it. However, filthy metallic crust punk cannot suffice if you aim to become a well rounded crust lord prone to display an impeccable piosity so that it is crucial that you develop a sensible expertise in the noizier branch of the crust philosophy, primarily influenced by the sophisticated works of the Bristol and Kyushu schools, and more generally 80's hardcore bands that believed in the curative powers of distortion, glue and really fast music. Sarcasm is a fun band to listen to - and I say this with the utmost respect - especially on this recording which truly conveys their intent to make a bloody racket and enjoying themselves in the process. Starting with the song "Suppression" which opens with a deliciously filthy stenchcore introduction, à la Deviated Instinct, before diving headfirst into cavemen crust oblivion, Your Funeral My Party is an intense listening experience and if you are looking for nine minutes of extravagant aural savagery, it will be your thing. While the aforementioned "Suppression" and "Crisis point" can be described as aggressively gruff and distorted cavecrust numbers reminiscent of Extreme Noise Terror, Doom or early Disrupt but with a Bristol vibe, the four remaining songs are shorter and faster, highlighting the band's talent for revisiting the mid-80's Disorder/Chaos UK hardcore sound, not unlike Plasmid, Dirge or Insurrection but with a heavier sound and a nod toward Gai and raw Japanese hardcore. I love the hyperbolic, insanity-driven crusty vocals and the classic "low growls reply to high-pitched barks" pattern. Primitive and gnarly noizy crusty UK hardcore thrash or something. Whatever you want to call it, this Ep is a proper delight if you like old-school ear-slaughtering hardcore punk that smells like cider and squats and, on some odd ontological level, Sarcasm sound like what their font look like. Right?

As you can imagine from the title of the Ep - which I personally adore - the lyrics are quite angry and direct indeed with songs against popstars (with the classic line "Don't give me one of their record, or I'll stick it up your ass"), the rich, politicians and the fucking system. The following Ep, The Lowest Form of Wit released in 1992 on Tribal War Records, might even be better and, well, even crustier. I strongly recommend the compilation of all their vinyl output, entitled Noise Bastards Vol. 1: a Collection of Ep's and Splits released in 2007 on Impulso Ruin from Peru.

This Ep kills posers.  

Your Funeral My Crusty