DIRT "Object Refuse Reject Abuse" Ep, 1981

When feeling blue, a lot of people indulge in what they call "comfort food" in order to feel better. Something familiar, predictable that brings back - if temporarily - that feeling of safety and warmth. Granted, some of that "comfort food" must be called "comfort booze," and "comfort hangover," afterwards but I suppose it fulfills the same purpose: getting over shit through what you intimately like, through familiarity, for instance through greasy crisps, a can of cider and the blasting of Why - not that I would ever need to be comforted, I just bought my second yacht thanks to Terminal Sound Nuisance and the fourth attempt at hair transplants seems to have finally worked as my scalp is not as purulent as last time (that one Turkish barber advertised on Youtube was dodgy indeed in the end, I should have been more cautious). I am a spoilt man.

From my tiny spot in this big bad world, a good way to feel better, if only briefly, is, of course, to play a vintage UK anarchopunk records that I have listened to death for the past 25 years and whose corners, circumvolutions, flaws and every single tiny details I have learnt to love. Just as important to this comfort-seeking enterprise is the exact memory of where and when I first bumped into the band, in this case Dirt. It's funny how you can remember - usually fondly, even though it might have been a crap show - gigs that took place so long ago but are barely able to name the opening bands of last Tuesday's concert. I bought my first Dirt record on October, 4th, 2002, at an Inner Terrestrials gig in a venue called Fahrenheit near Paris. Unless you were there at the time, there is little chance that you have ever heard of this venue but it used to play an important role in the alternative punk scene between 1984 and 2008. For the record Nirvana played there in December, 1989 in front of a manifestly rather scarce audience although listening to some old-timers who suddenly pretend to have been there indeed you would think they played to a full house.

But back to my petty story. At this Inner Terrestrial gig, a band I really enjoyed then and still do, Active Distribution had come along and they had set a little distro table with political fanzines I would mostly pretend to be interested in in order to look cool and sophisticated and a couple of cd's the label had put out among which was Dirt's double cd discography Black and White, referenced as Active 1 for you nerds and originally released in 1997 so I suppose I was lucky to find it at all for cheap then (it now goes for more than 40 euros on Discogs). I am aware everybody hates cd's these days because they have no cachet - and because Stranger Things is set at a time when they did not exist yet they will therefore forever be deemed unworthy of coolness and of viral Tik Tok videos - but the cd version included two amazing unreleased songs that were not on the vinyl version. Who's the fool now, huh? 

I would be lying if I said it was love at first sight between Dirt and I and it did take me some time to get used to Deno's unhinged shrieks, especially on the band's early years. When I did totally get it, I couldn't help but think how disturbing and challenging the vocals would have been 20 years before, back when it originally came out. By then female vocals in punk were still tacitly expected to have some melody, some tunefulness to them. Of course, punk-rock questioned gender norms and expectations and bands like X-Ray Spex, Crass of course or Vice Squad did challenge the conventional image of female rock singers and while there were evidently angry and passionate political female rock singers before punk, they did not really sound angry and did not shout in the microphone like demented howls if you know what I mean. Dirt took things one step further in 1981 with Deno sounding deliciously tuneless on this first Ep and showing no pretense of any intellectualism (unlike Crass I guess) or of any London art schools bollocks or of poster punk stardom. The legendary repetition of "Object refuse! Reject Abuse!" concluding "Democracy" remains an iconic (as Gen Z's would say) bit of anarchopunk history and the best way to deter burglars. 

It is easy but nevertheless true to claim that a Dirtless world would have been more boring and many a young punk - female or male actually - might have been influenced by the strident vocal style and by the efficient simplicity of these four songs and thusly galvanised into action. On this level, I would personally argue that Dirt's snotty punky discordance was as important as Chaos UK or Disorder's, although their influence may have been more circumscribed to the anarcho realms (this is very difficult to assess from our perspective as many local scenes then were not as split and tribalism not as prevalent as we can imagine and people freely listened to all sorts of punk and besides, let's keep in mind that no less than 13000 copies of Dirt's Ep were sold at the time). 

In any case, and if the amount of patches and shirts still worn today is any indication (which it probably isn't, the band may just prove to be more Insta-compatible), Dirt remain one of the most loved anarchopunk bands of the era. As mentioned the crazy, defiant shrieky vocals of Deno are still what they are primarily known for - for good reasons as they still sound so mental and spontaneous almost 50 years later as I got to experience by playing the band to my "I listen to a bit of everything" work colleagues - but I would venture that the three-chords simplicity, the raw sound, the energy, the distortion, the primitive tribal beats, the frontal punk vibe and the dual vocals (let's not discard Gary's ace vocals as well) all make this Ep an absolute 80's punk classic. Of course, a less thoughtful, more direct version of Crass is an obvious point of comparison as they definitely borrowed their mentors' love for noise and distortion - and let's not forget to mention that the Ep was obviously produced by Penny Rimbaud whose very precise, strict, inimitable ideas of what bands were meant to sound like went on to define what we know call "the classic anarcho sound". Rereading Glasper's The Day the Country Died I noticed Gary mentioned that they would listen to 6 Minute War a lot in the band's very early days and that Dirt was at first basically a faster, noisier version of their songwriting, which makes a lot of sense sense; and I personally would throw The Epileptics/The Licks in the mix as well - albeit in a much spikier mood. Finally, one might contend that Dirt's long-standing popularity also has to do with their image that, along with their music, was significantly more punk than a lot of their anarcho comrades like Flux, The Mob or Omega Tribe who were often discarded as "bourgeois" or "hippie shit" by the spikes'n'studs crews, especially in the pre social media days. But Dirt never were, perhaps because of the punk-as-fuck spontaneity of their sound, they were paradoxically easier to listen to alongside Chaos UK, The Exploited or The Business, and because later on they reformed before it was fashionable to do so and toured with DIY crusty hardcore bands like Hellkrusher or Final Warning and played many DIY festivals and squat gigs in the 90's, they definitely maintained that anarchopunk street cred, all of these elements making them such a respected and beloved band.

So yeah, there's nothing like Deno's vocals when you are looking for comfort and now that I think of it the band foes very well with a cold can of cider and some crisps. 6 minutes and 30 seconds of delight.

Object Refuse Reject Abuuuuuuse

    

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Tragate la attaque

  

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

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

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

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

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

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

Crust Manufactured Terror

 

RAZA ODIADA "Salta la hijueputa frontera" tape, 2016

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

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

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

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

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

Raza Punk

KŁAMSTWO "Alienacja" tape, 2002

The times we currently live in suck. 

I wonder sometimes how I would be if I was a teenager in 2026. Of course, I can imagine myself being some sort of avant-garde enlightened Tik Tok influencer claiming to be on the verge of success, but this imaginary self born in 2010 would also probably be more miserable than the actual one of 1999 and might be firmly convinced that the world as we know and hate it is about to be annihilated by some madmen. And that's without mentioning the insane pressure that punk kids have these to pretend to love Turnstile in order to fit in. In my days when you were getting into "real punk" you had to pretend to hate Green Day because they were sellouts and dared to have tunes (which was the same thing). It was much easier and a cheap way to look rebellious. The irony in all this is that, I'm told, current teens fantasise about the 90's and even the 00's, an unspoilt pre social media - to be understood as prelapsarian - era, free from hateful online bullies and the constant stress to be connected, visible and available at all times which does sound horrible. The anti Myspace critique of the mid 00's do feel almost innocent in retrospect and have the aroma of desuetude, those days when punks still believed that social media and the world they carried in their dark hearts could be resisted. Not the most clairvoyant moment in punk history I'll grant your that.

Will the Kłamstwo tape cheer everyone up? Well, I think it might do the trick, at least for a while. This Polish band was all about energy and tunes, great ones, that will survive in your head for a couple of days. This rather obscure act were from Knurów, a mining town in the South of Poland where, according to the band's presentation online, boredom ruled in the 90's, the future felt bleak and punk was the ideal means to face reality and be creative, so not exactly a fancy seaside resort I presume. A classic punk origin story. The term "kłamstwo" means "lie" in English and it is, clearly, much harder to pronounce but isn't punk as much as a network of friends as it is a network of languages? I don't know much about the band itself and while I would love to have a great anecdote about how I came across this largely hidden gem, I'm pretty sure it just popped as a recommendation on bloody youtube which is certainly an unromantic anticlimax and a perfect example of how the internet sometimes makes our passion feel tame. But anyway, I clicked on the thing because I like Polish punk (knowing a bit of Polish I knew where they were from) and it was love at first listen.

Kłamstwo played tuneful and highly energetic female-fronted political punk-rock (the two doves logo suggests an anarcho leaning) with that distinctive Polish flair for catchy guitar hooks and vocals. The introduction from the label Zima you can find on its website (amazingly the tape is still available) says that the youthful band formed in 1998, somehow managed to record a very DIY demo in 2000 that they were unhappy with (one song off this recording "session" made it to the tape as a bonus and to be fair I think it's not that bad) and as result went to a proper studio to record 12 songs in 2001, the album Alienacja that would be released in 2002, and... well, it looks like it was pretty much it. The band then appeared on a massive tribute to Dezerter in 2006 but, not owning the thing, I am unable to tell you when the cover was recorded. Similarly I could not find any details about the members' whereabouts following the end of the band sometime in the mid 00's I assume. Zima was and still is a very active label that specialised in alternative music, not just punk but also reggae (the genre is very popular in Poland), that notably released the whole discography of legendary 80's band Śmierć Kliniczna who were local to the area and dozens of other weed-smoking acts I have never heard of (since I read somewhere that smoking weed could make people enjoy Manu Chao I firmly decided to never smoke again).

24 years later and Putin is still in the charts.

The label's blurb indicated that Kłamstwo were influenced, among other bands, by Post-Regiment, Konwent A and Kanada, three bands that have strong female singers. If the comparison to the immensely influential Post-Regiment can make sense (not just vocally but also because the guitar player tries to infuse some memorable melodies although Post-Regiment's sound remains somewhat sacrosanct) and is fairly obvious, the Konwent A parallel proves to be more relevant as the two bands share a similar sense of tunes and intensity. The chance that you would have heard about Konwent A is slim - unless you are an old-school punk from Poland - as they never released anything when they were originally active in the mid/late 80's although there are, of course, live versions of their songs recorded at the Jarocin festival. Pretty classic story for a Polish punk band at the time. This said, Konwent A must have circulated in DIY fashion through tapes and the appeal of the band is easily understandable. I would also throw the 90's band 105 Lux from Gdynia that displayed musical qualities and some elements of the songwriting that Kłamstwo would make their own and because of my own musical background I cannot help but think of tune-driven UK bands too like Dan or Sofahead too or even 90's DIRT, bands that made punk energy melodic.

The Polish scene has had this long tradition of strong female-fronted punk with a message and Kłamstwo fits right into this category. Some tunes on the guitar leads are absolutely brilliant and I challenge anyone to listen to "Konformista" and "Miasto" and try to resist the urge to whistle to the tunes. Of course, you can tell Kłamstwo were still a young band and there are a couple of sloppy moments, however the production is very clean, if basic, and highlights the catchy guitar work and the deceptively simple vocals that sound warm and upfront. It's such a shame that they never recorded more. 

Alienacja

MOBCHARGE "Self-titled" tape, 1997

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

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

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

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

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

Charged Mob  

OUTCRY "S/t" tape Ep, 2017

Damn, I can't believe it has already been more than a month since I last enlightened heathenish punks with my wisdom and my impeccably tasteful, splendiferous record collection. But you know, I'm a busy man, what with me constantly traveling to give patronising conferences all around the world or to take part in the numerous photoshoots I do for prestigious magazines. And that's without taking into account all the fan mails I have to reply to, a very time-consuming process indeed. I suppose that's what comes with fame as the reliable and fussy keeper of the precious crust tenets, a bit like Charon but with a "pay no more than" tag.

Anyway, here I am, back again with a tape from a sadly short-lived Halifax band: Outcry. I must have first heard of Outcry through their demo in 2016 that was released on Runstate Tapes, a Montreal based tape label that was quite prolific (with some cracking releases from the likes of Apärä, Mock Execution or Ultrarat) but hasn't put anything out since 2023, but then we all need a break sometimes. Since the late 00's, Halifax has had a strong tradition of quality punk and their local bands almost always hit the mark - not unlike an instance of sustainable agriculture although the farmers probably use pesticides like hard cider or cheap speed - and as a result I am always confident when dealing with them. 

To get back to the band's demo, and their overall modest production, I feel it can be said to be largely of its time, anchored. In that respect Outcry certainly captured the mood of the revivalist time in terms of influences and vibe. Musically the band's sound is rooted in the rich in punk points old-school UK82 and anarchopunk sound of the 80's that, from a synchronic perspective, was also adopted by contemporary bands such as Lux, Rubble or indeed Vivid Sekt (although this lot had been around for some years by the time Outcry so that, if I see them in a similar stylistic light, they might have been an influence, if not literally at least conceptually). The music can be said to be retro with a strong UK vibe something that Rosie and Adam already worked on in the aforementioned Abject Pax but not as straightforwardly. I suppose one might argue that this subgenre, this "anarcho UK82", filled a gap and answered the need for snotty catchy spiky punk-rock done by learned DIY punks.

The first recording was fine in its own right and paved the way for the much superior - not to mention available - second effort, a tape Ep (right?) released the next year. The recipe is similar but the production displays more of that raw and snotty energy, managing to confer a genuinely old-school vibe like few did. In fact, were it not as purposefully executed - as intentionally perfectly referential and close to perfection if you wish - you could have someone believe that Outcry were actually a band from Wigan that recorded an Ep for Bluurg Records that never came out because the drummer got pissed and lost the tapes until they were found 25 years later in his mum's garage. I am a sucker for vintage worship so needless to say that I relate to the music here as the band navigates fluidly between established UK82 bands like Vice Squad, The Expelled and their modern Barcelona based interpretation, anarchopunk bands like DIRT, Toxic Waste (especially with the bass lines) or even a primitive version of Crass and I'd throw in some of the 90's anarcho sound of Media Children, A//Political or Mankind?. We're definitely not far from Avaricious as well but I would be at a loss to claim that Outcry had heard about them. 

What I particularly enjoy on this tape stands in the bounciness of the songwriting, the catchiness of the riffs and the high-pitched vocals, the simplicity of the beat, they all work well with one another. Outcry do not reinvent the wheel here but if you need some petrol for your female-fronted UK punk engine then they gloriously do the trick. Just good punk-rock that rules my own safe sandbox. I am not sure when the band stopped playing but Rosie kept playing anarchopunk music when she moved to Montreal through her involvement with The Conscripts a band that had members of Primer Regimen, Malokio and PMS 84 that vanished at some point and whose Lp remains somewhat enigmatic. 

I think my version of this Outcry tape is the self-released one by the band (I don't remember how I got it because I am well into my forties now and I just forget things) but two other European versions can be found, one on the Kiev based No Name Distro and the other on Oscuridad en mi Vida, a tape only sublabel of the always reliable Symphony of Destruction from Brittany. 

Tragically singer Rosie passed away in 2020. I have never met her - or anyone from Halifax now that I think of it - but I enjoy and love many bands she was a part of like Zygome (whom I previously covered) or the underrated Abject Pax among others so that it always saddens me when someone from our punk microcosm dies. La Vida Es Un Mus released a 12" Ep from Rosie's solo project Cry Out (the name seems to indicate that it was very much a continuation of Outcry). It was already meant to be but by the time of her passing the recording was not quite finished so that the result may not sound just like she envisioned it. The result is still very fine, probably more akin to the eerier, more progressive side of UK anarchopunk like Toxic Shock or Annie Anxiety, possibly Faction too, but still keeping that direct snot-punk vibe. An interesting work for sure that is still available and the perfect tribute to a very creative person.

Outcry

1981 "The Only Governement is Your Self" tape, 2011

It's always a little tricky to name your band after a year. It can get cryptic fast unless you go for 1984 like about 36 other bands according to Discogs (among which a very fine Polish postpunk band from the 80's). Orwell's novel is, undeniably, a clever work that resonates deeply with many and whose influence - direct or indirect - permeates a lot of popular sci-fi creations and political literature, and obviously a lot of punk bands. You could make a whole compilation series with punk songs that have "1984" in their title. The cynic in me would point out that most may not have actually read the novel and if they have it's probably because it is one of the few novels that the Punk Elders officially allow you to. Pretending to have read Kafka, Dostoevsky, Camus or Butler can also come handy if you want to look smart. Thanks fuck we have Wikipedia these days to spare ourselves the pain. 

But today's band did not pick the highly symbolical 1984 - although they legitimately could have, given the lyrics - but the year 1981 and I am absolutely clueless as to why. Being from Turku, Finland, it must refer to some sort of historical event like a local political movement or a strike. But for all I know it could also refer to Kaaos' early split Ep or the bass player's birth year.

I don't quite remember exactly when I first heard of the band but that would have been around 2011. They played in Paris in 2012 so that was definitely before that. To be perfectly honest, I was a little suspicious of the band for reasons that quickly proved to be wrong. At that point in time I had noticed that some styles I loved dearly but that few people cared about locally, started to get more popular or at least garner some interest. Namely old-school UK anarchopunk or UK82. Don't get me wrong, some old-timers were of course really into it and definitely influenced me and made me discover priceless - and often pricy - bands but, Paris being Paris, most people, beside big names like Crass, Conflict or Subhumans, didn't really give a shit about Zounds, The Mob or Chumba, bands that didn't sound or look as punk and were a bit more challenging. These are bands your mum could probably bear to listen to which makes them unacceptable for the majority of punks. 

But anyway, the fact that MRR, through Lance Hahn's work, documented that scene, that Glasper published The Day the Country Died, that Overground Records released their wonderful Anti- compilation series and that a lot of those old bands started to reform and reissue their material, well, it was unavoidable that people who couldn't care less about Bluurg or Spiderleg started to pay attention. Which should have been a source of joy but also made me a little wary. It was very childish and these days everyone can know everything with a couple of clicks so that's not really an issue anymore. So yeah, stupid me.

1981 was one of the first bands to bring back the traditional anarchopunk sound at that time as the 00's  (beside some exceptions like Life's a Riot! (who were coincidentally also from Finland), Surrender (with whom they'd share an Ep), Counter Attack or Active Slaughter) had been deprived of classic anarcho influences on a musical level and the exceptions by no means relied on the more morose and poppier side of the genre - goth-punk was right on the corner for that. 1981 were an oddity in the musical landscape of the time and to an extent they still are 15 years on. Them being first introduced to me as an "anarcho-pop" band of sorts certainly didn't help alleviate my suspicion so that when I was first exposed to The Only Government is Your Self I was ready to scoff, loathe, dismiss, despise and hate the thing, which of course I didn't and, on the contrary, I found it incredible. Seldom have my prejudices and biases been proven so wrong.  

It sounded fresh, the perfect balance of referentiality and originality, a recording that could appeal to genuine learned fans of anarchopunk and also to people looking for good tunes and smart politics. Granted your basic grindcore freaks were possibly unimpressed but I for one was immediately converted. The singer (who had been active in bands like The Phoenix Foundation among others) told me that 1981 was made up of people from your usual DIY hardcore punk scene as well as from the indie-rock scene, which I thankfully know virtually nothing about. On paper this association would have me call the Punk Police immediately but in that context it works perfectly as the poppier aspect blends seamlessly with the punk sound. It's basically an update on bands that were already influenced with progressive, trippier, poppier elements anyway, like the aforementioned Zounds, The Mob or Chumbawamba (if 1981 really had to be paired with one it'd be with them). The first song "Nightmare/Reality" announces what's to come. It opens with an Alternative riff and ends with an homage to Omega Tribe's softer side. Fan service but done with originality if you know what I mean. The rest cannot be said to be as referential - although the connoisseur will be able to identify the nods - and 1981 have their own way of creating melodies, with their clear guitar sound, the upfront bass lines and sung male and female vocals (my one minor negative comment about the tape is that the female vocalist is not present enough but she would be in the later records). 

This last element could be what really set them apart from the other anarcho-influenced or goth punk bands that were about to pop up. Whereas most bands used a lot of reverbs, delay or echo on their vocals, 1981 did not. They sang with their real voice which gives the songs a sense of genuineness and immediacy, but also vulnerability and imperfection which I think goes very well with the genre. Sure, the singers are not always in tune but then who was in the 80's? Mark Mob was not. 1981 would have fit right in with the All the Madmen crew and bands like Thatcher on Acid, Null and Void or A Bitter Lesson. For good measure they covered Political Asylum  as singer Ilmari was a massive fan and even reissued on cd the Scots' early materials on his label Passing Bells. Now that's love. The Only Government is Your Self was 1981's first recording and the eight songs are memorable. I hadn't played them in a while and once the start button was hit they all came back to me in a heartbeat. As the saying goes, if you can whistle a tune in the shower, then it's a keeper. 

Surprisingly this was never reissued on vinyl (it would make for a rather glorious Lp) even though it does feel like a proper album more than a demo. There is lovely booklet coming with the tape with all the lyrics and cut'n'paste artwork and it's overall clearly a labour of love and passion which is more than one can say about a lot of bands these days (alright, I'm being grumpy). There are two versions of the tape, mine being the 2011 repress on Cut the Cord... records. The band went on to be quite prolific but stuck to Ep's (9 of them!) and you should be able to find some for a relatively good price (Acts of Aggression or In the Dead of Night, that have rerecorded versions of some songs, come especially recommended). Svart Records did release a vinyl compilation with the early singles but this no longer comes cheap unfortunately. I am not sure whether 1981 are still active but they released their last Ep in 2023 so they could be. The world being where it's at these days they should probably release something new.  

1981