Life can be beautiful. And I don't mean just the band LIFE, who has been consistently beautiful for ages, unlike many of us. Sometimes you can encounter, by sheer chance, marvelous punk recordings out of nowhere, so to speak, like Randy Orton's RKO but without your skull being buried on a wrestling mat (this being said, the sensation can be very similar with loud crasher crust). Phozgene is one such example of an amazing hardcore punk surprise. I wish I could tell you that I found their tape in my mailbox because the boys were massive fans of Terminal Sound Nuisance and were begging me to write about it (a $100 bill would have to be included in the envelop of course). But unromantically, their recording just appeared in the youtube recommendations one morning and I think I clicked on the link because the "O" had a peace symbol in it. The most glamorous element of this embarrassingly anticlimactic story may be the fact that I was probably wearing my Disclose pyjamas. It could be much worse of course and Vancouver's Phozgene could have merely been a pure waste of my precious time and attention span. At least, the recording is brilliant.
More often than not, surprises are disappointing though. Years ago, I remember my dad insisted on bringing me a present from one of his holidays in a resort of some kind. I tried to dissuade him as the last time he had done that I ended up with the cheesiest Dubrovnik key chain. But he told me that this time he would bring me something I would actually enjoy and be proud of. That got me very worried but his drive was quite touching and I thought that the worst thing he could bring back was an ashtray or, if he were particularly ambitious, some sort of smelly carpet from an "authentic" market for tourists. I was wrong. When he came back he proudly told me that he had gone in an actual "rock shop" where he asked for a "rock shirt". My heart almost stopped beating and when he gave me the grey, vastly oversized Limp Bizkit top, I was so speechless that he mistook my reaction for overwhelming happiness. I never told him that this horror quickly ended up as a dust cloth that I would still hide under the bed in case a fellow punk saw it and ruined my then fragile reputation. A scarring experience indeed but I should not complain, it was a heartfelt gift and I should feel lucky to get gifts at all. And it did make for a quality dust cloth to be honest. So thank you daddy.
But back to Phozgene. "Phosgene" means "a poisonous, colorless, very volatile liquid or suffocating gas, (...) a chemical warfare compound" which I suppose makes it a synonym for special brew. Phozgene was a band that had what I call a "fuck me effect". I suppose that if you spend too much time watching American series and films, you could call that the "wow factor", which sounds pretty dreadful to be honest. The "fuck me effect" implies that you are completely taken by surprise by a brilliant band, one that you did not necessarily expect much from and that gives you a massive kick up the arse (in a good way, not in a "where have you been all night son?" kinda way). Phozgene felt exactly like that. A band seemingly coming out of nowhere and checking all the right crust boxes. It was basically a crust equivalent of the RKO: you don't see it coming but it nails you nonetheless. And whenever I listen to Phozgene, I still remember that amazing feeling of being pleasantly surprised and it does make your Supreme Leader - i.e. me - really happy as it has become pretty rare to be favourably impressed by a random obscure band in a world where we are continually fed new bands and constantly bombarded with hyped "genre-bending rules-challenging crucial hardcore bands" that end up being forgotten and replaced with another one six months after. Not that any of my own bands has ever been included in that category. So I may just be envious.
I asked guitar hero Cordie about the history of Phozgene and that was how it went. Back in 2016 bass player Alex and himself had just completed a tour with their PDX-based band Suss Law and they decided to go back to Vancouver (where Cordie is from). The both of them started messing about in the studio and quickly wrote songs influenced by the mighty G-Anx while smoking weed. Amazingly they were capable to play an actual gig just weeks after the songs were even written in those circumstances. If you lock me up in a studio with some mates and feed us a weed-based diet, the result would be absolutely embarrassing and the best anti-drug campaign in world's history. The message would be something like: "If you don't want to make a fool of yourself in public like that twat on stage, don't do drugs". But anyway, after that first gig the band recruited new drummer Darrell and two months after they recorded that little gem of a demo. There was another studio session in the Summer of 2017 where four songs were recorded, one of which appeared on the Terminal Noize Addicts compilation Ep in 2019 along with Suss Law, Zyanose and fucking Disorder (one of Cordy's teenage fantasies I'm sure). The three remaining songs have not been released yet (hopefully a label will wake up and get to it someday). By 2019, Phozgene was no longer though as they stopped playing after a small tour in Canada in late 2017. In the end, the band only played for about ten months.
So what makes Phozgene a highlight of the decade for me, albeit a modest one. The band had something that few others can claim to have: they sound original. The basic ingredients for the recipe are classic in the best sense of the term. Right from the introduction, the main direction can be aptly defined as old-school filthy stenchcrust with 90's style dual vocals and an angry punk vibe (rather than a metal one) running throughout. Or something. The band don't hesitate to switch beats, from the traditional dis-käng worship to the dirty mid-paced thrashing crust one and blasting old-school hardcore. Apart from G-Anx, 80's British crust bands like Mortal Terror, Electro Hippies and '88 Deviated Instinct come to mind just like cavemen käng inspired classics like 3-Way Cum or State of Fear and I would also definitely compare it with the more contemporary '09/'10-era of Cancer Spreading (that's accuracy for you). But while bands influenced by G-Anx usually stick to the ultra fast käng hardcore template, Phozgene also worked on the psychedelic aspect of the band and freely included more progressive influences with tribal space rock bits, dark postpunk moments, free rock solos and even some synth thrown in there, all of those smartly integrated into the whole and not just thrown in there. So yeah, weed.
On paper, it could just sound like a mess but taken as a whole, it makes sense and allows the demo to tell a great story with different moods that is different but still coherent and meaningful. It will definitely appeal to people craving for gruff old-school crust and at the same time bring something new, with a fresh twist, to a table that often lacks personality and creativity. I suppose that we are not far, conceptually at least, from what Instinct of Survival offered in the mid 2010's (revival stenchcore meets Zygote and Smartpils) and a band like Kärzer (which you can explore here) can be approach in a similar light. It would be far-fetched to claim Phozgene were the first act to add psychedelic and progressive influences to classic crust though and in the 90's Bad Influence and Πανικός clearly pioneered this drive to go beyond through this peculiar path. But as I mentioned, it is uncommon to see that nowadays, even more so from a band proverbially coming out of nowhere.
This demo was first released in 2017 by Thought Decay Records from Canada (Phane's own short-lived attempt at releasing stuff I presume) and reissued in 2020 by No Name Records from Kiev. With a 25 minute running time, it would make for a brilliant vinyl Lp (just saying). Cordie and Alex are still doing Suss Law (distorted and noizy UK82) and the latter also plays in a Ramones-inspired band called The Chuffs. As for Cordie, he is a busy bee and beside riffing in the brilliant Phane (charged punk at its very best), he also lent his skills to Brutalize (raw punk hell), Despair (which I can say is one of my favourite orthodox d-beat bands of the decade so you will hear about it at some point in the future) and he has probably written a handful of riffs for three new bands since I started this article.
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