There are bands that just cannot help shooting themselves in the foot.
The first contact you have with a band is through the name (yes, this review is co-written with my long-time friend and mentor Captain Obvious) and while good bands don't always stick - for whatever reason - good names do. Just look at 3-Way Cum. An absolutely brilliant band, one of the very best in the gruff crust genre in the 90's, a decade when the style was about as fashionable as a Tik Tok lip sync challenge today (don't ask) and yet the strange choice for a name may repel a lot of people and insured that wearing a 3-Way Cum shirt at the supermarket would raise some highbrows and attract some acutely disapproving looks (not so much at goregrind shows though). Not really a sticker (or for the wrong reasons). I am not going to talk about average or even mediocre bands that had great names because I am not that kind of person, especially since the last lawsuit, but let's face it: a good name for a band is like a good name in life, it's a good first impression. But it still is just an impression: Spectres for example is a fantastic moniker and yet they have become a Tears for Fears cover band.
That's a little how I feel about Juggling Jugulars and Enough! - especially for the latter to be honest - good bands but why go for such names. And I do know what I am talking about as I play in a band called Turquoise (yes, go figure). People may not be aware of it but the phrase "juggling with out jugulars" is actually a line taken from a song by the mighty Rudimentary Peni entitled "Slimy member" (itself the name of a rather good US band). And - wait for it, wait for it - this very same song also has a line that says "severed head of state" just like that Portland band that used to be famous. How unlikely is that? A one-minute song with merely twelve lines reading like a poem has inspired not one but three bands in their brainstorming for a good name. That's some solid trivia if you want to show off like a dick on New Year's Eve. I recommend you start a drunken conversation about this exact subject at around 4AM with a total stranger. That'll show them. But to get back to today's topic, in spite of its clever and nerdy origin, which I personally like, Juggling Jugulars cannot be said to be a convenient name as it is a bit of a mouthful and the meaning is rather, well, cryptic.
JJ are from Tampere and Pori and have been around seemingly forever, basically since 1989. The phrase "they are still around?" abounds whenever the band is mentioned. And yes the are still around. They have changed a lot throughout the years and have managed to forge their own brand of tuneful anthemic political female-fronted punk-rock that can be sung in the shower but still has an aggressive powerful edge. They did not start quite like that although you could already hear, here and there on this Ep, a tendency for melody and a quest for the balance between snot and tune. There are some really catchy moments and "Toy voters" with its infectious chorus and dark guitar lead is genuinely good and my favourite number. The one song in Finnish, "Suolia Ja Ulosteita", is a completely different animal, an enjoyably chaotic and humorous take on classic 80's Tampere hardcore. Very fun. The remaining three songs are decidedly punk-rock, navigating between snotty UK punk, Deutsch punk (or is it just me?) or even early hardcore. Not bad but nothing too spectacular either about those.
On the other side you will find the real heavyweight of this Ep with Enough! from Gdansk. To be quite honest, Enough! are the reason why this record made it to this series (which is a bit like being selected for the Crust Olympics). They check the two main Terminal Sound Nuisance boxes: they play groovy gruff crust and (yet) they are (still) vastly underrated. Arguably the band took some questionable decisions. The name "enough!" does not sound too good (why a name in English if all the lyrics are in Polish?) even if I like the sentiment behind it as it can be the source of a lot of misunderstandings and shit puns ("do you know Enough!?", "Enough! is enough" or "damn, I just can't get Enough!!"). As for wearing a shirt, well it'd just look a bit silly or even arty, innit? Not as silly as my English Dogs top depicting naked women riding dragons but still a potential inspiration for bad dad jokes. As for the artwork neither JJ and their cheesy drawing of a juggling clown nor Enough! with the sketch of an eye wide open really manage to grasp the attention (but then the Poles' Darkside tape displays a ridiculously ugly bat so the eye is not so bad after all). And despite all this, I consider Enough! as one of the best Polish crust bands of the time (and there was some harsh competition not like in France where about three bands were fighting for the throne). Actually, to be fair, I also rate Enough! as one of the best metallic crust bands of the 90's (name and visual aesthetics notwithstanding).
Terminal Sound Nuisance is very much a home and safe space where prejudices are fought and notions of "good" versus "bad" music are challenged (to put it mildy). Maybe narrow-minded crusties ignored Enough! because they were not curious enough (pun half intended) and I seriously pity them because the band deserves much more attention than they get. These two songs are old-school metallic crust miracles with a thick and heavy production that is just dirty enough and highlights the pummeling groove and power of the songwriting. Of course the band emerged from the prolific and qualitative Polish anarcho/hardcore/crust scene of the 90's so they should definitely be seen in this exceptionally creative context that gave birth to better known bands like Homomilitia, Sanctus Iuda or Infekcja. You could argue that retrospectively, from the outside, the band may seem a little lost among all the other top bands and that may account for their relative obscurity outside of Poland.
Darkside, their 1996 demo (six songs of which would land on a split 10'' with Nula in 1998) was already a strong start, a raw and aggressive dual male/female vocal filth-crust attack with a metallic edge (a bit like a fistfight between Homomilitia and Excrement of War taking place in a discarded scrapyard) but the improvement on this second recording session is impressive. Enough! sound unstoppable here.
It can be difficult to sound genuinely heavy without sounding too produced but the two songs are just viscerally heavy, at the core. The first number "Życie To Tylko Łzy" reworks a classic Deviated Instinct riff to launch the track into a heavy groove-laden mid-paced vintage crust anthem with cavemen vocal to die - or kill - for. The second song "Bez Litości" also uses a classic band's riff as a songwriting basis, this time Sacrilege's, for the old-school thrashing stenchcore bollocking of the year. Colossal stuff. There is a definite 90's feel too on those two songs and the crushing power and the textures of Hiatus do shine through as well and I sense some of Misery's sense of gruff apocalyptics and at the same time Enough! definitely sound like a Polish crust band. Flawless and leaving the listener begging for more but, of course, there would not be more from Enough!, sadly. The crust adventures were not over yet as two members of the band got involved at some point in Filth of Mankind (Tomek eventually taking over on vocals).
Did Enough! have enough (well) to record a full album with that crunchy blend of old-school UK crust and 90's eurocrust? Well, who knows. I see the band as a case of proto 00's stenchcore revival in a lot of respects although they sounded more primal and frontal. The degree of intentionality of the refrences in the songwriting remains unknown. In any case you should rush and get yourself the recent Lp reissue of Darkside as it also includes the two songs from the split Ep with a new cover but with an equally horrible closeup picture of a deranged looking bat. Really guys?
This nice split includes two very different bands who share the "network of friends" DIY vibe of the time. And it can be found for cheap. It was released on Trująca Fala in 1997, a label run by a wonderful man that started in 1992 as a tape label and is still very much active.
In life, some things never fail to disappoint. Like my mate Paul's notorious drunken antics - often compared to a unique local brand of natural disaster - that have had him banned from most bars North of the equator or like the world consistently going to shit and sinking into a cycle of blind violence and blood cult at an always steadier pace, whichever of the two is worse for humankind. Fortunately, there are also positive things on which one can safely rely on and a good old anarchopunk split Ep from the 90's is one of them for me. What can provide you with a sense of well-being and comfort varies a lot depending on your tastes. For some it could be yet another rerun of Derrick, for others it would be paying half your monthly wage on a dodgy wellness guru who dispenses online training for reconnecting with your inner child and accessing your life savings. Whatever works. Derrick is cheaper but not as good for your karma I suppose.
But we do live in dark times. For all I know, every generation has had the feeling that theirs was doomed or sacrificed and that the times they happened to be forced to survive in were getting worse and worse. Still, the fact that large parts of the Earth will become uninhabitable by 2050 is indeed a novelty that Dante would have happily validated, without mentioning the international conflicts that, tragically, are literally like Discharge songs. Instead of burying my head in the sand - which hurts a lot according to my mate Paul - I just play records I try to think about in the process, some that I have had for a while and kept in a collection where spots are highly coveted and fought for. Just to keep my sanity.
Today we're dealing with a split record released in 1997 between Haywire from Southampton, UK, and The Öbliteräted from the much higher profile Portland. It's not the first time the Southerners appear on Terminal Sound Nuisance as I already wrote about their first demo tapes, 1988's Blood Money and 1990's Freedom?, in 2012, here, a time when Brexit still seemed like a very unlikely prospect, twat king Trump hadn't been elected yet and no one knew what Covid even was (beside your weird cousin who has always been way too much into conspiracy theories and thinks the postie, a lazy if friendly bastard, is a reptilian). And let's not mention that I used to have far more luxurious hair back then. Recording-wise Haywire have always been rather sporadic. They formed as early as 1984 in Weymouth and did not get their shit together until 1988 for the aforementioned first demo. I suppose the four intervening years were both spent arsing around in the studio and, realistically, being involved in various DIY activities. If anything Haywire were a very outspoken political band which is not something you see that often any longer. They moved to Southampton - for some reason - in 1993 and managed to release two records during the decade, this split Ep and another Ep, in the same vein, entitled Mad Cow Disease the following year. With bands these days releasing two vinyls a year, Haywire's production is thin but then a lot of bands never cared much for releasing records and focused on playing live and actually practicing what they preach rather than feeding objects to materialistic persons like myself.
Still, this Ep is a fine slice of a style of anarchopunk that was prevalent in 90's Britain. In the 80's Haywire had a metallic influence that was gone by then. By the mid-90's, the music was simpler, more direct and punkier in a traditional 1-2-1-2 fashion. The production is basic which works with the songwriting and confers a certain old-school charm point to the previous decade - which makes sense given the longevity of the band. I think the two vocalists and how they work together give some variety and energy to the songs. There are hints of early Conflict and Symbol of Freedom but most of all the songs remind me of 90's bands that were influenced by 80's anarchopunk like Portland's Resist or Deprived and especially of forgotten Yorkshire-based Armed Relapse who certainly worked on similar basis. The last song "Civilised" about animal and human torture - the other two deal with squatting and the Criminal Justice bill and the rise of fascism - is my favourite with its Antisect-ish riffs and its fast snotty punk vibe. Very enjoyable. I got to see Haywire live in 2007 at the Scum Fest in London and I have fond recollections of their performance. In 2008 they released their only album entitled Carnival of Chaos so their set might have been made up of those more recent songs (?). It would be far-fetched to call Haywire a classic anarcho band but they undeniably put their money where their mouth was and were vehemently honest which was it's all about at the end of the day. Three of them now play in Armoured Flu Unit.
On the other side are The Öbliteräted, a moniker armed with two umlauts, a bloody pain to write properly, keeping in the tradition of punk names using an adjective as a collective substantive. This PDX group is the perfect example of a band that had a genuine potential but did not quite get to produce the record they were capable of (which is the exact opposite of my bands: little potential but still releasing stuff). How many people outside of the members remember The Öbliteräted is open to question as I have never heard anyone mention them. Before playing the record after some years when I did my research, I realized I did not remember properly how they sounded like. I guess I expected some decent-but-not-that-good Defiance-type spiky punk-rock but they are far more tuneful and deserve a much better description than that. From today's perspective, they had a cracking lineup with Ben (later in the oft overlooked Phalanx), Matt (then in Defiance and later in Dog Soldier) and Todd (Resist, Deprived and the awkwardly named The Unamused, the man certainly like adjectives used as substantives) which does look good on Discogs I suppose. What I also did not remember is that The Öbliteräted had a female singer which was a pleasant surprise and makes the band stand out from the legions of boys - though truth be told a lot of women were involved in the anarchopunk and the wider punk scene in the 90's.
I don't hear much of an American punk influence here. Of course Mankind? would be a rather obvious comparison but they were very influenced by UK bands themselves. The first number, a mid-paced gem called "False conception", is my favourite with its delicious nods to classic 80's anarchopunk like The Sears, A-Heads or indeed 90's DIRT (who significantly toured the States a couple of years earlier). The guitar work displays at times a sense of tune and melody that is typical of late 80's/90's bands however and along with the strong female vocals and the band's inclination to play fast while keeping a crucial of tunefulness, a band like Dan could be the most relevant comparison or even Polish legends Post-Regiment who were very popular in the U$. The production is very dynamic and energetic, not too clean. As I mentioned it's a bit of a shame that they did not quite reach their true potential. The following Ep, Insanity, is something of a disappointment as the band got rid of most of their traditional anarchopunk influence with a more direct approach. Some might favour that one though. Judging from the many pictures included in the Ep one can infer that they had some fun doing the band and, well, punk is serious but it also has to be fun, otherwise you should just stick to writing pamphlets and not bother playing riffs with and to friends. On the other hand, political punk cannot only be just fun for the sake fun, otherwise you could just play neu metal or something.
A fine little split with two bands working on anarchopunk but with very different results. The two covers look brilliant too: an evil dragon-like businessman tearing a punk in half with symbolic capitalism in the background for Haywire and a two-headed zombified punk clearly on the boozer in a sort of dystopian vomit-oriented punk wasteland for The Öbliteräted. It was released on Consensus Reality the label run by Kelly (from Defiance and about 136 other bands) brother of Ben. Small world.
I recently went on vacation with my mum, something I had not done since 2012, for good reason as it transpired during this trip. Not that we argue much or anything, it is just that she is into the silent contemplation and connection with nature while I cannot help but doing a d-beat with my fingers whenever and wherever I happen to be. Beside I am highly distrustful, as a rule, of flora and fauna since the day I got shat upon by an evil pigeon twice (!) in a single week. I bet it was the same fucker. Beside what are leaves for if not to hide dog turds for you to trod upon when you are taking in innocent Sunday morning walk after a barely remembered night out? Exactly. We don't get along much Mother Nature and I although judging from the lyrics of 99% crust bands trees are, apparently, crucial to the Earth's survival and, by extension, mine. So please don't die trees. Thanks.
Still we had a pretty good time and no bird fucked around with me. There is absolutely no connection between this quiet mother-and-son adventure and the present split Ep. In fact, had I told my mum that the prospect to write a review about a band called Society Gang Rape upon our return was very exciting, she would have looked at me with her usual look, a blend of worried disbelief and genuine maternal bewilderment that means "what the fuck did I do wrong?". And well, to be fair, I certainly would not wear a Society Gang Rape shirt. What with reaching 40 and being a bloke, I would definitely pass for a disgusting, revolting pervert, understandably so, and I would no doubt get my ass kicked before I can explain that the band was a feminist crust band from Sweden with three female members. That would definitely end up on some social media, I would be canceled for life and you would have to hide in the loo in order to read Terminal Sound Nuisance in secret, like a vulgar porn mag (note for zoomers, a "porn magazine" was a glossy newspaper with dirty pictures in it before you could not stream videos with your phone before). So yeah, I will stick to my Antisect and Deviated Instinct shirts.
Both bands on the split were actually from the same - rather small - town of Avesta and both bands had the same contact address under the name of "Gunnarsson", a last name shared both by Marie-Louise (SGP) and Michael (Uncurbed) so that one could venture they might have been from the same family. Would the Uncurbed family be for real? I have never been there but wikipedia states in the "Sightseeing" section in order to attract tourists to this quaint little town that Avesta has the world's biggest Dalecarlian horse. Since you are clueless about what a Dalecarlian horse is, let me educate you. Dalecarlian horses are painted wooden statues of horses that have been around since the 17th century, at least. So I am guessing they are big on horses over there. Which I am not. They are mean creatures that stink of shit. For some reason, wikipedia does not mention any Uncurbed museum so there might not be one in Avesta which does come as a surprise. I have already written about the mighty Uncurbed and their really fun ...Keeps the Banner High album here, a work that illustrates rightly what heavy rocking käng crust sounds like. But the four songs on this Ep, recorded in August, 1996, a couple of months after Punk and Anger and almost a year before Peacelovepunklife, is different. Uncurbed loved the album format and they only released two (split) Ep's in the 90's, one with Disfear and the other with SGR. Possibly one of those bands that go into a songwriting frenzy before recordings and always end up doing an Lp. Not always for the best but sadly untreatable.
If the four songs included on the Ep were instrumental and your eyes were closed, you would not necessarily guess that they are Uncurbed's. Not that they strayed far from their Swedish hardcore roots mind you, but still. Even for a genuine world-renowned expert like myself, with eyes closed and without the vocals, I would have said that we are dealing with a rare recording of some sort of Meanwhile or Disfear. The first two songs out of the four included on the Ep are impeccable raw pummeling "just-like-Discharge" d-takt scorchers done with taste. Of course the classic Uncurbed dual vocals immediately give away that the bunch of friendly Avesta punks are behind it. "The rope song" is a classic faster käng number typical of the band's catalogue while "Pissaa ja paskaa" is a short enjoyable Tervet Kädet cover. The production fits the songs perfectly, rawer and meaner than what Uncurbed usually go for. These are great six minutes.
On the flip side are Society Gang Rape, one the few Swedish hardcore bands in the 90's that had female members. In fact SGR was an almost all-girl group as only the drummer was a man. This was pretty uncommon at the time and, if things have changed for the better, it still, sadly, is to a significant extent. The band started as a Swedish death-metal band in the early 90's and, just like hardcore bands, there were shit tons of those over there too. What a decade, though not a good one for hairdressers. I cannot claim to be a connoisseur of death-metal although I don't dislike it and the Scandinavian brand has always stricken me as being particularly good (like their take on extreme music in general). The early version of SGR sounds very convincing with traces of crust already popping up here and there. They were initially called Sadistic Gang Rape which they wisely changed to the slightly less shocking Society Gang Rape. I have no idea if they ever made patches or shorts with the first moniker as the one google search I dared to do was extremely depressing. Obviously the fact that the band was predominantly female does cast a different light on the meaning of the name and highlights a proud feminist stance that is not taking any shit. Would it be possible for a band to have such a name in 2023? I can only imagine the online shitstorm and it is not pretty.
By the time they switched from the sadistic abuse to the social one, the band was slowly morphing into a decidedly crustier unit. Their second self-titled effort released in 1994 was a pretty typical 90's crust affair with brutal dual vocals but the production was arguably too clean and overall it lacked the aggression that the death-metal version of themselves, and indeed their later one, displayed. For some reason this recording was first released on cd in 1994 with eight songs and on an Ep under the titled More Dead Than Alive in 1997 with only four, both on Sound Pollution. Uncurbed and SGR were clearly closed tied with the American label that released four records of the former and two of the latter.
The four songs on this Ep were recorded in August, 1996, at the same studio as Uncurbed and it is not unlikely that both bands recorded on the same day or week. The session proved that SGR sounded better, raspier and angrier when in all out raw käng mode. The songs are simpler, more urgent albeit a bit sloppier but then that's how the genre is supposed to be played. The metal influence is all but absent with only a delicious filth-crust break on the first song and a short introduction to the last one, itself a masterclass in direct chaotic pissed mangel hardcore with the cymbals really at the front - I am sucker for that when it comes to this style when on the Ep format; it just works insanely well - that is almost Frigöra-like. Musically SGR here sound close to Uppsala bands like Cumbrage or Diskonto but the typically 90's crust dual female vocals bring something different in terms of flow, structure and scansion and made those four songs rather special in the context of the käng/crust/d-beat wave that swept over Sweden in that decade. I am reminded of the Swedish-inspired but crusty dual-vocal band Excrement of War, especially with Mags' voice, and in terms of gruff angry growls and shouts, female-fronted Polish crust acts like Stradoom Terror or Homomilitia are not far. Four songs in five minutes, no fucking around.
However I would like to point out that the song "Fuck Chirac" is deeply insulting for French people and would make my dad really sad because he was a massive fan of the president (Chirac was a bit like his own Taylor Swift if you like) and he even shook his hand once (granted Chirac shook the hand of all the employees of the company but still, my father felt a bond).
Following this Ep SGR would release the No Fate Lp in 1997 (on Sound Pollution again) that globally built on the same basis but with a cleaner production (courtesy of one Peter Tägtren a death-metal specialist) that did not convey as well the similar vibe of a brutal käng attack and anger. Still a decent album, though a tad long, and one that you should definitely know if you are into what Swedish punks were up to in the 90's and into feminist or all-female hardcore punk, especially since the band seems to be half-forgotten these days.
This Ep was released in 1996 on Yellow Dog Records, a once very active Berlin-based band and record store run by a member of Autoritär. A nice little record of crusty Swedish hardcore.
If you are looking for something clean, thought-provoking, challenging hardcore-punk that goes against the rules and regulations, codes and conventions, against "the norm" done by good-looking Instagram-friendly Americans who thrive on being "followed" by others and taking selfies, then this record is not for you. Or maybe it could be if you bother for a change, checking ugly bands playing ugly music to ugly people for a good price as I was able to find a copy of this split Ep for a mere 2€ which is about 15 times cheaper than a Turnstile record (checking this Zoomer band's website I realized that they sell grossly overpriced hats and fucking teddy bears but no physical records... what an odd choice for an ex punk band). Alright, let's stop with the boomer-flavoured rant, as we can hold hands, kiss and definitely enjoy Turntile and Hiastus, even though the latter were fortunately never nominated for any kind of awards, except a local beer drinking contest and a grizzli bear imitation one.
Let's just get to the actual record in a swift fashion. This is not an excellent record to be perfectly honest. I like it a lot but that doesn't mean it is objectively that good and, in fact, even fans of the genres adopted by the bands could do without the Ep and live a perfectly normal, unhappy life. I am not, have never been and never will be, as you know full well, one deterred by average generic punk music. It is all a matter of love that is as blind as it is, in this case, deaf. This Totuus/Hiastus split Ep reminds me of the original noble goal that led me to create Terminal Sound Nuisance: "a blog promoting good (and not so good) genuine punk music". This record does fall into the "not so good" category but it doesn't mean it cannot be loved and rediscovered. There was something heart-breaking in seeing this battered copy in the 2€ record bin (my acute crust detector told it was only a matter of time before it got relegated to the 1€ one) and, being a soft bastard, I could not help but rescue this little angel from the dumpster, like a gran welcoming her seventh kitten because the little shit was hungry and homeless or something.
I knew of Totuus before because I already owned the 1999 self-titled Ep released on Fight Records and I closely associate the band with this well-known and still active Finnish label based in Tampere that released or rereleased works from Kaaos, Tampere SS, Unkind, Positive Negative or Riistetyt. With such a list of culprits, one already logically imagines what Totuus - which translates as "truth" - will sound like: classic raw and direct Finnish hardcore. Clever but not completely true. The backbone of the band remains firmly rooted in 80's Finncore (think Terveet Kädet or Kantan Uutiset, even Riistetyt) and the production, or lack thereof, effortlessly reproduces the sound of that decade, but you can still tell Totuus was a 90's band. It would not be mistaken to compare them with bands like Rajoitus or Uutuus because, beside them all ending with the phoneme "-tus", they cook with the same old-school ingredients, but where the aforementioned bands almost exclusively rely on 80's Finnish hardcore (although Rajoitus were Swedes) Totuus also had a European hardcore influence and bands like BGK or Ripcord do come to mind. It would appear far-fetched to state that they were as good as all those canonized acts but their side of the split is still pretty solid and has that wild, furious, biting energy. 9 short songs in less than 7 minutes. The split Ep format fits the songwriting perfectly and makes Totuus and solid example of proper raw old-school hardcore done in the 90's and looking lovingly toward the previous decade.
Do you remember that kid at school who was desperate to look like the coolest, most stylish, most popular cat and tried so hard to walk like him, dress like him, talk like him? That's pretty much the relationship between Hiastus and Hiatus. The former went as far as calling themselves Hiastus, which means - wait for it, wait for it - "hiatus" in Finnish. On the surface, this sounds adorable. A band trying to sound like their heroes, a band that openly wears its heart on the sleeve, a band that does not give a single shit about even trying to pretend to be original in any way. And really deep down, it is what most teenage bands are all about when they start. They just want to be The Clash or Black Flag or your older cousin's nu-metal band that for some reason seems to attract a lot of girls.
D-beat, as a genre, works exactly like this, on worshipping and emulating the source material, referring to the signs and symboles. If one were to see it as a subgenre, 90's crust would be one that is defined strictly with a rather short time period - let's say from 1991 to 2005 and the rise of neocrust. D-beat also started as a 90's epiphenomenon but, contrary to the classic eurocrust sound, survived in one piece in spite of a certain drop in popularity in the late 00's, and then got even stronger and spread everywhere with time. Therefore "eurocrust" or more globally "90's crust" was not so much a subgenre as it was a wave, with a distinct sound that was used to build and lead the new generations of crust, as opposed to d-beat which by essence had to stay the same with some tone variations. Siblings of 90's crust, "cavemen crust" or "cavecrust" (as I like to call it) managed to stay alive, afloat and deliver proud examples of the Doom-loving crust traditions from times to times, especially in Japan - Doom-love was an essential trait of European crust in the 90's - and instances of classic ENT/Disrupt dual-vocal crustcore bands still occur but on too small a scale to state to states that there is a such a thing as genre-emulating or genre-referring 90's crust trend. Sob fucking sob.
But in any case, Hiastus were 90's eurocrust to the bone. It was in their blood, they breathed eurocrust, they ate eurocrust, they drank eurocrust, their wildest dreams were made of fantasies of splits between Hiatus and Warcollapse, Silna Wola and Subcaos, Enola Gay and Social Genocide. For all I know the drummer named his first-born Way of Doom. It is actually not the first time that I write about Hiastus as they appeared on the Never Again compilation Ep that I reviewed 10 fucking years ago. That stings. Beside the mighty Hiatus, the Oulu-based band was without a doubt very influenced by the national crust heroes Amen who, with a first deliciously sloppy Ep in 1990, belonged to the first generation of eurocrust. They clearly must have played Feikki and Paranemia quite a bit. With the band relying on the traditional dual vocal crust attack, like Amen, to spread the message - recent discoveries revealed that the first instances of such an aural technique may date back to the neolithic era, when humans could not actually speak and grunted like apes - early Disrupt and Extreme Noise Terror must have been blasted to death as well. The sound is obviously pretty raw (the surface noise only providing extra crust points) but the music is more energetic than I remember with a good pummeling drumming. The vocals are too loud in the mix and a little overwhelming at times, especially because of the very dedicated fellow responsible for the low growling parts. Ironically the spoken parts are too low in the mix, as if the singers, after three songs of shouting like demented sea elephants, were too shy to speak normally all of a sudden. The flaw makes the music sound a bit ridiculous but even more enjoyable as well. This is 90's DIY crustcore, not technical metal.
Hiastus remind me of the Polish band Money Drug who were equally raw and a bit sloppy with their dual vocal eurocrust recipe, and of their countrymen Rotten Sound who started as very similar Disrupt-ish act with their Ep Sick Bastards in 1995. I like the Hiastus side a lot but, let's get real, this is one is for the crust completists, for the archivists, for the obsessed, for those who consider prehistoric 90's crust as the sweetest serenade and mid-table Hiatus-like bands as adorable underdogs in a decade plagued by shoegaze.
You already know if you need this split Ep, I know I do.
I have to confess that I have been oblivious to both Dismachine and Cumbrage for a long time. I am a bit at a loss to understand why. These two bands worked in a field that was massively overpopulated in the 90's, namely Swedish hardcore, aka käng or scandicore, and, when yours truly miraculously crashed in the scene in the early 00's, it was very easy to get lost among all the Disfear, Diskonto or Dischange of a few years past. Overwhelming would be the exact word. The two Uppsala units we are dealing with today were always hanging in the background in my mind. I knew who and what they were - at least roughly - but could not be arsed to properly investigate, a bit like the familiar faces you have been seeing at gigs forever but never bothered really talking to beside the odd "You alright mate?" a rhetorical question to which the only possible answer is "I've been fine, you?" as an honest one like "Actually I have been very depressed since my dog's death and I really need to talk to someone. Do you like dogs?" would absolute mortify me and force me to pretend to care about the fartful Captain Doggo's untimely passing. That was pretty much my relationship with Dismachine and Cumbrage: glad they're here but not enough to bother. Of course, when I really paid attention I realize I was wrong, an unpleasant but sadly not a rare occurrence these days.
In my tiny mind Dismachine were "that band that did a split record with Totalitär at some point" which is technically true but tends to dismiss them, on paper, as a sparring partner if not a sidekick. Unfair, definitely, and the incredible popularity that Totalitär have been enjoying for the past 15 years - they have arguably never been as popular as they are today - does reinforce that feeling. How many Totalitär-like bands does the world need? And I know what I am talking about, I play in one. When the record came out in 1995 my favourite band was still probably Ace of Base so upon release Dismachine may have been popular too for all I know. And at least the split Lp ensures that the name Dismachine will not disappear.
The name they picked did not help. I don't really mind it as the practice to apply the "dis" prefix to a random name was still fresh in the 90's. It was not the smartest lexical choice but in 1995 it made sense. Not so much in the 2020's as I see the practice as very passé if not a little distasteful (lol right?) in some cases. We actually had a bass player put down when we started looking for a name with my band and he offered, smiling innocently like a bellend, "Dispocalypse". May Bob rest in Dis. Being called Dismachine in the 90's was both an advantage and a downside. On the one hand it allowed and still allows the band to be immediately identified and associated with the 90's Swedish käng/d-beat/crust wave which is like a dog whistle for stud-wearing Discharge nuts and crusters. On the other hand it limited and still limits the band to be immediately identified and associated with the 90's Swedish käng/d-beat/crust wave which is like a repellent and a source of prejudices for people who are not inclined to wear studs and have a decent dental hygiene and no lice. Before seriously diving into Dismachine, seeing they were from Uppsala and I am familiar with what the punks were up to there and then, I was expecting a Diskonto-like hardcore band with a more orthodox Discharge vibe. Yeah wrong again.
Dismachine managed to pull out a genuine tour de force: the blend of angry raw käng with furious blasting grinding fastcore. In theory it should not really work or at least not as fluidly, as effortlessly and as dynamically but they nailed it. When one thinks (by which I mean me) about the mating of käng and fastcore, one fears that it would produce something disparate and not cohesive, a bit like a kid with a faded Anti-Cimex shirt and a bullet belt but also a bandana and an American cap. What a dreadful sight. But in Dismachine's case, it sounds perfect. The split Ep format fits them to a T (well to a D) because the fast grindy vibe can be exhausting on a full length and of course the d-takt käng style is tailor-made for Ep's. On their side you will be exposed to proper raw energetic classic Swedish hardcore like Cimex, Asocial or early Totalitär and over-the-top punk-as-fuck blasting mean fast hardcore not unlike G-Anx or Dropdead. I love how they keep it serious and yet fun (the three-second songs clearly point out at the cheeky side of grindcore). If you bump into a record bin with a Dismachine record (that's where I found my copy as I remember it), you know what to do. The band members were busy bees and the Uppsala scene's seeming dynamism in the 90's has a lot to do with the fact that each one of them being involved in other projects: D-Takt master Jan Jutila also played in Times Square Preachers, Dishonest and Disjah (a studio project with Kawakami!) among others, Jonas was in Diskonto, Aparat and Nojsbojs (Noise Boys?), Linus also in Diskonto, Nojsbojs, Arsedestroyer and Masturbatorium (yes) and Masta in Aparat. The classic case of ten people equals ten bands.
Cumbrage emerged from the exact same scene. In fact Jan Jutila this time is credited as doing some vocals (he was on the guitar in Dismachine and on drums with TSP, what a man), while Kjelle played in Zionide and Times Square Preachers. There is a strange indication on the Ep's cover that says "Featuring Times Square Preachers and C.U.M." which is little unsettling. If C.U.M. was Cumbrage's first name and it may have made sense to point out that it was the same band under a different albeit equally bad name (alright, Cumbrage is a little better, because it is at least incomprehensible), but Times Square Preachers was a different band altogether. It did share members with Dismachine (and Cumbrage) though, so that the purpose may have been to signal that people from TSP were involved and since they were one of the bands that kickstarted the 90's käng thing in Uppsala (along with Diskonto) it sounded reasonable. Or perhaps Dismachine was basically the sequel of TSP with a different lineup and songwriting style but then that would not make much sense given the propensity of this crew to start new bands all the time. Or would it? Please let me know.
Cumbrage is more classical than Dismachine and in fact sound exactly like I once expected Dismachine to sound like: right on the border between raw old-school käng and orthodox d-beat. It you want to be a terminological smart-arse you could argue that Cumbrage are "discore". Or maybe just describe their crude hardcore tornado as an orgy between Totalitär, Dischange, Asocial and No Security. What really works here - and the same could be said about Dismachine - is the production as the music has that organic rawness, that spontaneous hardcore furiousness, the songs sound very dynamic and retain the Discharge-loving spirit of the classic 80's bands without trying too hard. The riffs are rigorously käng-oriented and the vocal flow and the prosody demonstrate that the singers know exactly how the genre is supposed to sound like and the drumming is a crash course in d-beat.
Unsurprisingly both bands recorded their songs in D-Takt studio with Jan Jutila at the helm which is the hardcore equivalent of having David Beckham as your personal beauty coach: the man knows what he is talking about. This split Ep cannot be said to be a 90's classic but classically 90's. It is very solid and much better than what passes as Swedish hardcore sometimes and I see it as a käng candy, something predictably heart-warming with a by-the-book performance of raw pummeling dis-flavoured-käng by Cumbrage and something a little original with Dismachine's blend of furious blasting fastcore and classic 80's käng. The record just flows because of the very similar punchy raw production on both side, for all I know the two bands recorded on the same day which gives extra cohesiveness and conveys a real local Uppsala vibe. Did I mention that it was released on Jan Jutila's label Your Own Jailer Records?
A sweet little Ep that is better than you probably remember.
Alright then, let's finally get back to work. I wish I could tell you that Terminal Sound Nuisance was dormant because I was busy pursuing my dream of becoming a referee in professional wrestling but the reality is, as it always is, much more prosaic and unexceptional. Our luxurious 22m2 mansion was broken into and my computer (with all the blog's files stored on it for extra pain) got nicked. It could have been worse as none of the records has been stolen, as far as I can see. I can't help but imagine the face of the burglars when they entered our tiny two room flat and witnessed the ridiculous quantity of dodgy-looking vinyls not to mention the massive Antisect flag hanging above our bed. If they were young lads, which is likely, there is a chance they had never even seen an actual record before. They must have thought that some olympic level losers live here. Thank fuck they did not find my shark costume. In any case, to their credit, they did not wreck up the place at all and just grabbed the two computers. And my electric razor for some reason. That actually really pissed me off. And how disgusting, for all they know I could use it to shave my arse with it. Not to mention that they did not even take the charger.
But enough whining, there are worse things in life like surviving in a war-torn country, crying your eyes out because you can't feed your kid or losing a mint copy of Deviated Instinct's Welcome to the Orgy. As I pointed out in a previous post, the focus of this next series will be more around medium and less around content. For that reason a split Ep's special felt like the perfect choice. I have often ranted about how great and specifically DIY punk this format has been but I have never actually taken the thing to the next level, embrace the concept and embark in an epic split Ep series. Not only is the witty choice convenient, comfortable even, since I have a lot of them, but it also felt relevant because this traditional medium doesn't seem to be as popular nowadays than it once was. So buckle up, or don't if you are not a proper punk and a mere shoegaze poser.
To open such a series, I just had to pick an Agathocles record. It would have been deeply insulting not to as the Belgians have released an insane amount of splits with bands from all around the world since 1988. They epitomise, excessively perhaps, the essence of the DIY punk split Ep based around cooperation, togetherness and mutual support. It is also much cheaper to do as costs are, well, split. Because of this overproduction Agathocles have become a legendary gimmick band, one that is known as much if not more for their music, the content, as for the form, the record-as-medium. I mean, even my aunt Sylvie did a split Ep with them for all I know. Although I understand people who are, I am myself not a massive fan of Agathocles. The Lp records I own are great because a mate who's also a grindcore freak (and not illogically an eternal bachelor) recommended them, like the split Lp with Unholy Grave or Razor Sharp Daggers. The rest of the Agathocles records in my collection, I bought for the other side, for the band they shared the split with. Like Drudge, Depressor or indeed Social Genocide. And let's start with this cruelly underrated Austrian crust band.
First, I must get on my knees and apologize to all of you. As I endlessly exhibit my knowledge and love for 90's crust, a genre that, inexplicably according to my jazz-loving twat of a shrink, I adore, I completely forgot, to my greatest shame, to include Social Genocide on my Crustmas compilation a few years back. The band just slipped my mind and there is really no excuse for that. Criminal. Truth be told, they do have a pretty shit name that sadly prevents me to ever wear a Social Genocide shirt (Genital Deformities' at least is merely gross) and hasn't aged too well, especially since the Covid pandemics which saw the emergence of legions of idiotic conspiracy "theorists" who thought that the virus and/or the vaccine were an attempt from "the rich elite" to exterminate "the poor", which is extremely stupid and shows how little-educated people are when it comes to basic knowledge of class antagonism. The capitalist class needs the working class to work for them in order to extract value and benefits and they need unemployement to impose low wages and blackmail workers to accept shite jobs in order to raise even larger profits. If you eradicate large segments of the lower classes, who's going to do the dirty work? Exactly, not millionaires' children. They need us so the idea that they would think to wipe us out on a grand scale is idiotic (at best). Digression over. Let's go back to Social Genocide.
I don't know much about the Austrian punk scene beside the fine 80's hardcore band Extrem, a couple of '77 style acts and more recent bands like Ruidosa Inmundicia (cracking band). Was the scene big in the 90's? Europe then was overrun with hardcore, grindcore and crust bands, the latter trying hard to sound like Doom, but as far as I can tell - which might not be that far at all and I am hoping to corrected - Austria was not exactly a hotspot for smelly crusty punks. And yet. And yet Social Genocide is the epitome, the best example I can think of of traditional 90's eurocrust, and my failing to include them on the aforementioned compilation hurts even more. Really. Conceptually, as masters and pioneers of the eurocrust style and wave, both in terms of quality and quantity, Hiatus occupied the unique spot of being the first quintessential eurocrust band, the epicentre of the crust pandemics, THE first band one will mention in the discussion. And yet, if you take eurocrust as style and wave, it necessarily implies that, while Hiatus were inspired and prompted into existence by Doom and more generally UK crust, Social Genocide and the likes were primarily influenced by Hiatus themselves. Therefore, what I mean with the term eurocrust in the frame of this review are the typical and characteristic post-Hiatus bands, those that Hiatus inspired (in addition to Doom or Extreme Noise Terror).
Thus, in that light, along with Subcaos, Social Genocide are basically the most relevant example of a perfectly executed, generic and typical - in the positive sense of term - referential eurocrust band. They were around at the apex of the wave, between 1994 and 1996, not just in Europe but also in the States and Japan, and absolutely delivered. Hailing from Götzis, close to Switzerland, Social Genocide's two songs on this Ep stand as delightful, delicious slices of a cavemen eurocrust cake found in a bin. With the raw and aggressive primal and punchy production, Hiatus heavily come to mind, pleonastic of me to point it out, but there are also large spoonful of genuine early Doom and I sense a distinct Japanese crust influence, which was certainly unusual in European crust at the time, as Battle of Disarm - if not Abraham Cross - are points of reference as well. Paradoxically maybe, Social Genocide managed to be a eurocrust paragon and yet included a Doom-loving Japanese crust touch in their sound (on their Ep's especially, the Lp had more of Private Jesus Detector/Masskontroll feel to my ears). It is subtle but present, if heavy, primal, filthy bear-like pummeling cavecrust can be called "subtle". This tendency is confirmed visually with their side's cover depicting a representation of the band drawn with that sort of naive post Disorder/Chaos UK style that Japanese crusties used - and still use - heavily. Beside, if you look closely, on this crustier-than-though piece exhibiting elite cartoon crust pants, the guitar player has GISM and Swankys stickers on the instrument. And of course the band's On the Brink of Destruction Ep was released on the Japanese label Peace Punk Records so there might have been some trades going on. Clues?
While we are still on the subject of referentiality, the first song opens with a sample that Anti-System also used on the No Laughing Matter Lp so that the learned listener immediately knows that Social Genocide also know. Wink wink. Utterly brilliant gruff crust songs and band. In our day and age that often celebrate minute worship and copies when it comes to crust or d-beat, the fantastic unoriginality of Social Genocide deserve to be acknowledged. On a side-note the drummer, before hitting things in Social Genocide, played in an obscure band called Dreaded Instinct, the name of which greatly excites my curiosity, further exacerbated by the Sore Throat-ian cover of the tape. Send it to me please. I'm begging ya.
On the other side, well, Agathocles and I have to say that I really like what they are doing here. They are not so much getting high on their traditional blasting 4-track sandpaper mincecore in this case, which I am able to enjoy from time to time, and more on a furious crusty cavegrind mood which appears to be the most relevant path they could have picked on such a split. The first song starts of with a spoken part that remind me heavily of the Belgian anarchopunk band Dona Nobis Pacem (probably the closest Antisect-worshipping band in Europe in the 90's) so that it might be a tribute of some sort, I hope. The vocals are guttural and the production is primitive and there are enough variations to appeal to the grindcore freaks but not so many as to repel the basic Doom-loving crust nuts. As the latter, I am reminded of a crude version of Terrorizer with some Embittered and Disrupt but I am sure grindcore experts would say otherwise. And at the end of the day, as undisputed pioneers Agathocles just sounded like themselves by 1995 but I am not an expect agathoclian so it would be impossible for me to really put this Ep in perspective with the rest of their immense discography. Social Genocide were close to the grindcore scene anyway since they also did a split with Cripple Bastards in 1994.
Unfortunately the insert of this split Ep is missing. Did I lose it or was it never there, I don't remember. It is on discogs if you care.
Alright, I am back. So to speak because I did not actually go anywhere this summer as a thing called "work" prevented me from enjoying something called "life". But I am back in the sense that this post will bring closure to the massive undertaking that started in early 2022, namely an exploration of crust in the recent years. As my mate Paul often says between the fourth and the fifth pint, time is a constantly moving thing and I cannot really keep writing about contemporary crust from the 2010's for eternity, my shrink was quite clear on that part. Overdosing on crust is rare but not unheard of.
So in order to wrap things up I decided to embark into an even bigger mission by creating compilations that illustrate what 2010's crust music was all about, like I did with the 90's and 00's. Except I ended up with an insane amount of bands. While I managed to deal with the previous decades with series of three compilations, it quickly became evident that there were just too many bands for the 2010's. So I switched from three to five compilations (and if I'm being honest I probably could have gone to six) with almost 150 bands. Does this discrepancy imply that there are more punk bands now than before? Or does it just suggest that with all 2010's bands having an internet presence to some degree they are much easier to find and their material is far more accessible? It might also have to do with the fact that it has become so much easier and affordable to record nowadays thanks to digital recording so that there could be more recordings and more studio projects but not necessarily more bands per se. In any case, a lovely project became quixotic and a little overwhelming at times. Did I have nightmares where I was persecuted by haunted crust pants? Yes I did.
You already know the noble principles of such compilations. They are meant to describe the crustscape of a given period from an international point of view. I already did specific Japanese crust compilations - with one about the 10's - so that I left out some Japanese bands to avoid repetitions. I tried to focus on crust as a whole and not just on so-called stenchcore or cavemen crust (the fanatical Doom-lovers). First because I wanted to bring at least a little diversity to the selection and second because even I would struggle to listen to 90 minutes straight of growling metal crust (or would I?) and if you want a compilation to captivate your audience, you have to include changes of paces, of vibes, have some tunes, some excruciating distorted moments and so on. It has to tell a story. A 90 minute long crust song is fine but it does not really exemplify or illustrate in a relevant fashion what the 2010's produced. So of course, all the gruff stenchcore units are there as well as the touching Doom/Sore Throat wannabes, but I also threw some heavy crust-flavoured käng hardcore, blownout distorted noizy crusty hardcore for interludes and bands flirting heavily with death-metal or grindcore. But don't worry, all the songs are crust-pants proof.
The international perspective is crucial to these comps as it highlights the dynamics of crust. In this decade Italy and Russia were strong and bands like Cancer Spreading and Fatum (both still active) confirmed that they were at the top of the vegan food chain. Instinct of Survival morphed into something different and fascinating and demonstrated that crust could be a moving thing. Philadelphia and Halifax proved to be insanely brilliant strongholds. Swordwielder and Xaotiko Telos recorded the bast album of the decade. Portland and Poland are still there. South Korea, Argentina and Belarus appeared on the crust map. And even France had its crust bands (no less than three French bands here, fuck me). Old-timers kept doing what they had always done, newcomers unleashed the fury. Ridiculous amounts of punk records were released. I had to sell my gran's kidney to indulge in my addiction to crust. Tough times.
As I pointed out with the previous compilations the decade-based format may not be the most relevant (but they are the most time-consuming) and scene-oriented compilations are better. You will find here bands like Axewield that stopped playing in 2010 and others like Warkrusher that pretty much started in 2019, two very different times but with both bands having recorded between 2010 and 2019, they had to be included. What international compilations are great at is the potential for discovery. Of course, I forgot some bands, exhaustivity is impossible and one has to keep a degree of subjectivity in the selection process, especially for punk compilations. But on the other hand I included bands that you probably have not heard of or never really listened to and hopefully it will prompt people to dig deeper afterwards. It is like a Royal Rumble, not every wrestler is brilliant but you always get to discover obscure new talents.
I did my best sound-wise using my own rips or downloading the best versions I could find (I just did not have the energy to rip every song as it would have taken far too much time) but of course levels vary a lot, not to mention the productions and the overall clarity. So it is what it is (a meaningless phrase I'll grant you that). But what did you expect from a crust compilation anyway?
These were fun to do and I believe they work well and are not boring. If you feel I missed some crucial bands, which is unlikely but possible, please comment. And if you know of solid local crust bands that I am unaware of, please feel free to write about them too. It is a work in progress. Play loud of course, grab your filthiest crust pants, your most derelict jacket, your stinky biker boots, grab some cider and enjoy.
OUT FROM THE VOID INTO THE DIGITAL AGE: CRUST IN THE 2010's
VOLUME ONE:
01. ALEMENT "Seas of consequence" from Onward 12" EP, 2019 (U$A)
02. BRAINCËLL "L.C.D (Liquid Crystal Deep - Sleep)" from S/t split EP with ZYKADE, 2019 (Malaysia)
03. PHYSIQUE "Weaponized faith" from The Rhythm of Brutality 10", 2019 (U$A)
04. KERETIK "Unelma kostosta" from Terra Mater LP, 2017 (Finland)
05. CONSTANT STATE OF TERROR "Throne of blood" from Speak Truth to Power LP, 2020 (recorded in 2014) (England)
06. WOJNA "Stołkowe Kurwy" from S/t split EP with Social Crisis, 2018 (Poland)
01. LAST LEGION ALIVE "Holy thrones" from Burning Eutopia split LP with CANCER SPREADING, 2013 (Belgium)
02. WARCOLLAPSE "As they decide" from Desert of Ash 12", 2019 (Sweden)
03. BLINDED HUMANITY "Nasi not nazi" from Mind Control EP, 2019 (Singapore)
04. INSTINCT? "Pray to death" from Pray to Death tape, 2019 (U$A)
05. WASTELAND "Killers" from ?, 2012 (Slovenia)
06. SOW THREAT "War is tragedy" from Hate and Love LP, 2019 (Japan)
07. ΑΠΝΟΙΑ / APNOIA "Διχόνοια" from Θρίαμβος Του Μίσους tape, 2018 (Greece)
08. OILTANKER "Coma" from The Shadow of Greed LP, 2011 (U$A)
09. NONPRESIDENT "Smacznego" from S/t split LP with MITRĘGA, 2015 (Poland)
10. NIS "Felicità" from Origini D'Odio / Nel Dilagare Della Follia split EP with WARPATH, 2011 (Italy)
11. WEALD "Black bloc" from Demo 2011 tape, 2012 (U$A)
12. DROPEND "Grief" from Distortion Hell EP, 2013 (Japan)
13. AMBUSH "Ghastly remnants" from 4 Track flexi, 2014 (U$A)
14. CARNAGE "Final debt" from 342341n-1322717e tape, 2017 (Portugal)
15. LOS REZIOS "Izquierdismo (es mierda!)" from Clarificacion LP, 2011 (Peru)
16. ROÄC "Beware" from Rites of Ostara tape, 2016 (U$A)
17. DEVIATED INSTINCT "End times" from S/t split EP with SUMMON THE CROWS, 2012 (England)
18. VITRIOLIC RESPONSE "Linge d'arret" from Dark Wings Spread / Your Life is Fucked split EP with SYSTEM SHIT, 2014 (England)
19. POLLEN "Demoralize" from Fear of Another War EP, 2017 (U$A)
20. KRANG "The Earth was blue but there was no God" from Sounds of Death LP, 2012 (U$A) (was supposed to be included on the youtube video but for copyright issues cannot. It is however included on the version you can download)
21. ZAY "The question of silence" from Silence and Clamor cdr, 2015 (Japan)
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