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.
I appreciate the depth of research and thought evident in your article.
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