Last Night a D-Beat Saved My Life (part 11): DECADE "A Deadly Game of Make Believe" Ep, 2018

People who claim that Discharge-mimicking bands all sound the same are both right and wrong, although they are probably sorry to be right but wrong to believe they are. Well, partly. But at the end of the (domes)day it all depends if you are trying to express praise or contempt, approval or blame. On the one hand, you could very well mean that the bands all sound the same just as they should in a wonderful communion of love for Stoke-on-Trent antiheroes, their intentionally strong similarities illustrating a punk togetherness that has few, if any, comparisons in the music world. Or, on the other hand, you could very well mean that Discharge-loving bands all sound the same because they are uninspired, incapable of writing their own music and see originality as a cardinal sin. It really is a matter of perspective, two antithetic ways to look at the phenomenon.

But a band may very well rhapsodize about Discharge and yet not sound like a d-beat band. It sounds ludicrous but is not. Deathcharge's Plastic Smiles was a case in point with three copies of Discharge songs free of the infamous beat. A bit of a cheeky endeavour I suppose. Still, Plastic Smiles referred to those Discharge's mid-paced numbers that belonged to the acceptable era of the band, namely between 1980 and 1982, so that even though the D was not technically beaten, the Ep did worship at the right altar. As much as I would like to pretend that Discharge stopped in 1984, they did not and if Warning and The More I see can be considered as amusingly cheesy metallic punk records that retrospectively sound quite adorable, like listening to an elderly person try to use modern slang, inflicting the pompous Grave New World upon the punk world was far less forgivable and basically shitting the already damaged bed. Modernity, in its inscrutability, has seen the rise of bands claiming that they actually enjoyed this era of Discharge and strive to emulate the grave new beat. 

Is it postmodern irony? Fanaticism gone wrong? An unhealthy passion for perms? A bad diet with deficiencies in d-beat minerals? Who knows, but it sounds like ordering tap water at the pub on a first date. But after all Final Bombs have always loved and emulated mid-80's Discharge and even though I find the music absolutely revolting, I really do respect the passion. But what do I know about good taste, I cantillate to Blyth Power in the shower. In any case, there is no denying that a band such as Final Bombs love Discharge (and love is very deaf) as much as a band such as Meanwhile. Do they sound alike? Absolutely not. 

Among the current bands wearing their love for the Discharge era that was once taboo on their sleeves are Decade from Toronto, fine dis lovers mostly known these days for their appetence for Grave New World (as can be witnessed on their daring World Stopped Turning Lp and the rather good split Lp with Fatum). They started as a much more traditional d-beat unit such as can be heard on their first Ep, the brilliantly entitled A Deadly Game of Make Believe. I knew Decade before they turned "grave" and was well impressed upon hearing them for the first time. A Dead Game was originally released on Runstate Tapes, a Montreal-based label that specializes in cassettes of often small bands with an inclination for noisy raw hardcore and has been responsible for many good releases since 2013. The proper punk spirit if you know what I mean. This Decade recording was so punishing and relentless that it inevitably got reissued on vinyl through Rawmantic Disasters from Berlin (the name of the label includes both "raw" and "dis" so I suppose nobody will feel aggrieved if I don't detail further its field of expertise). 

From the opening of the gates, Decade unleash the fucking fury here and they are not messing around. Pummeling and dark Hear Nothing-era d-beat hardcore (think early Disfear and the "just-like-Discharge" 90's school) played with an intensity that few bands are able to reach. Classic riffs, a buzzing bass and drums well in front in the mix. However, as Discharge-inspired as Decade rightly demand to be seen, the band manages to infuse some originality to the otherwise aptly executed, tried and tested orthodox d-beat formula. There is a vibe of dementia and madness in Decade's music, a sense of pervading insanity blending with the customary anger the subgenre is based on. 

Through the addition of samples, noisy arrangements, interludes and transitions, saturated guitar effects (bordering on so-called noisepunk) and peculiar vocals, Decade do stand out. Of course, the vocals will cause the listener a Marmite reaction: you will love it or hate it. I have to admit I disliked it at first as I did not find it really contribute anything to the otherwise excellent "we <3 Discharge" record and thought it merely emphasized the fact that they were dicking around with too many vocal effects pedals. It was fantastic when Destino Final did it but it did get old quick and it still remains a major flaw in far too many contemporary raw punk bands. But playing the Ep again and listening closely I realized that indeed the vocals were not just gratuitous but actually conveyed an atmosphere of extreme dementia that can be found in some Japanese bands. I assume the intended effect was to bring some volatility and a slightly different edge by playing with the vocal and guitar textures and the traditional d-beat songwriting. May the aficionados have no fear though, Decade still very much rely on high referentiality and strict obedience to the Discharge rulebook. They just took some liberty with it and quite possibly had some psychedelic tea beforehand.

A Deadly Game of Make Believe stands as a fun d-beat Ep and one that I often go back to although it did not really hit me at first. Decade get to tell a very familiar story in a slightly different way here and they have to be commanded for it. Would it work on a full length? Well, I would have loved to see them try but this is highly unlikely to happen. As for the cover, it's not exactly bloodcurdling but the level of cheesiness is high (it does remind one of Ignorance or Thisclose actually) and I cannot help but think that it heralded the grave new venturesome Decade. It must be the shades and the arm-crossing contest.

A deadly game of make Discharge

Last Night a D-Beat Saved My Life (part 10): ASPECTS OF WAR "A Look Into the Nightmare" tape Ep, 2017

Aspects of War is the epitome of a band that does everything by the book. Not any book: the book of the D. This legendary punk codex is the equivalent of the Necronomicon but for people who like Discharge too much - although both readerships fall under the "nerd" category - as its deeper meaning can only be understood by initiates, higher level d-beat fans. It includes Holy d-beat scriptures with the Ten Commandments that must be respected at all costs by Dis nerds if they don't want to end up in Hell where, it is rumoured, one is subjected to shoegaze music for eternity. Beautiful illustrations and parables dating as far back as 1981 also show the way toward the d-beat epiphany to the flock of believers. 

How neat would that be, yeah? If there was such an oeuvre, Aspects of War would have reread it a couple of times just before recording A Look Into the Nightmare. Don't be fooled by the simple tape format, it is a flawless collections of four songs that could be shown to students following a D-Beat 201 class where they will learn about the distorted subspecies of the genre (the corpus is brilliant in this class). Aspects of War were an essentially 2010's band in the sense that they have to be approached through a diachronic lens rather than a synchronic one. The 2010's were a decade during which the Disclose worship, or rather the Kawakami adoration, boomed with an astounding parochial fervor. Previously discussed bands like Dispose or Disease are also to be seen from this perspective, and it can be argued that No Fucker were among the first, if not the first, non-Japanese band to theorize the Disclose-styled d-beat raw punk. From the status of unique band with its distinct style, Disclose became a blueprint for a specific d-beat style postmortem and Aspects of War were one of the noise unit that applied the protocol with dexterous determination and picked the name of a Disclose Ep as a moniker just to make sure that you get it. 

The studded four-piece started in 2010 and threw the towel around 2017. The band were from the Boston area which proves that you don't have to were trainers to play hardcore punk in this town. The lineup included Jake from Nerveskade or Zatsuon and Chris who ran the very good but sadly inactive label Brain Solvent Propaganda, while Devin and Trevor also played in the noisier crasher band Ambush (who did a solid flexi in 2014), so that you can say the boys already partook heavily in noise-making punk activities. Like a proper d-beat band on a mission, Aspects of War got to work with two raw demo tapes, Total Disfuckers in 2010 and the hilariously titled In Order to Satisfy Their Mania For Conquest Punks Are Squandered the next year (this open self-awareness combined with apropos references stands as another aspect of 2010's d-beat) before releasing the superior The Presence of Death Ep and a split with Contrast Attitude both in 2014 and a split with System Fucker and a flexi the next year, vinyl appearances that saw the band take things to a different level of brutality.

Beside a strict adherence to the d-beat raw punk canon, the strong point of Aspects of War was that they always managed to sound both raw and energetic. Sometimes Disclose-influenced bands rely too much on distorsion and effects and unconsciously forget the most crucial element in hardcore punk: the energy and dynamism. Disclose were never just about distortion, their songs were all angry declarations of love to Discharge and Discharge-loving 80's bands and in that sense Disclose were almost like a sonic filter through which these influences were transformed. And Aspects of War, like No Fucker, got that dimension just right. They balanced raw punk textures with simple but effective Dischargish songwriting with ease and A Look Into the Nightmare stood as their aptest release on that level because it reflected this balance perfectly. 

The early demos may be cruder and more primitive, the brilliant split with Contrast Attitude cleaner (well...) and more "produced", but this parting gift proved to be my favourite, not just because I got it for cheap. Three fast d-beat raw punk numbers reminiscent of Disclose (they are not called Aspects of War for nothing) No Fucker or even Final Massakre (especially the vocals) and classic 80's bands (The Iconoclast notably) and a mid-paced Discharge one to wrap it up. Eight minutes of Dis perfection. The North American version was released on Brain Solvent Propaganda for the Varning festival and the European one was done by Voice From Inside. Good shit indeed. 

ASPECTS OF D-BEAT

Last Night a D-Beat Saved My Life (part 9): FOSSE COMMUNE "S/t" demo tape, 2017

Well no, I did not lose a bet. I was not threatened or blackmailed in any way and chose freely. Although I have often, if not almost awlays, been disinclined to write about French punk bands, not just because French music generally irritates me and puts me in a foul and querulous mood, but because I did not grow up listening to French bands and in fact only witness their talent, or lack thereof, when at gigs. Many exceptions to this bitter rule exist, thankfully, but French hardcore bands too often wallow in that US hardcore style that I found particularly cumbersome and tainted with testosterone and basically undeserving of my august attention. Hence something of a reluctance. 

Places like Saint-Etienne or Bordeaux have proved, year in year out, to be able to deliver quality and tasteful hardcore punk music enabling the average French punk to look a Swede in the eye and claim, albeit with a shaky voice and with a horrendous accent: "we have a couple of decent bands at home you know". One cannot overstate how prevalent an influence the Bordeaux hardcore scene has had for the past 20 years. It is known for its deep-rooted passion for the D and for the recognized quality of its bands well outside the country. The fact that it's pretty much the same 10 people doing all the bands is of no importance as you could say the same thing about many a good scene in 2024. In the war against shit taste, they stand as a bastion of good hardcore music and the national résistance against the lurking peril of French oi. They protest to survive, resist to exist and ain't no feeble bastards when it comes to reject the rules of boots'n'braces and £75 Fred Perry shirts.

If you are into d-beat, and I concur that you are if you are reading this (unless you just enjoy reading pompous bollocks), you will have heard of class Bordeaux bands like Gasmask Terrör or Bombardement but the town also has hidden nuggets such as Fosse Commune (which translates as "mass grave", cheery stuff) that the common Discharge worshipper might be unaware of and it is my job, as the condescending redactor-in-chief and self-appointed leader of good taste, to educate the masses and uncover little-known but valuable d-beat bands and in actual fact I rate Fosse Commune pretty highly when it comes to that zoological classification.

The band proved to be, sadly, short-lived so that you would be partly pardoned from not knowing them and I admit that my proximity with the Bordeaux clique did facilitate my coming across them. Fosse Commune was born out of the desire of guitar hero Jesse and drummer Rémi to start a band that would sound like Disaster playing on Disclose's gears which on paper sounds like a very just cause to play music. The masterminds behind this evil plan were not exactly beginners as Jesse had been previously dicking around in the rudimentary albeit noisy Incendiaire and Slakteri and was also singing in the very fun Sexplosion (the title of a Discharge song you wish you could forget) at that point in time, while Rémi was, and still is, involved on the bass with the much underrated raw and furious hardcore band Hondartzako Hondakinak (amply referred to "Honda Honda" because we are, beside being Street Fighter 2 fans, linguistically lazy and unschooled in the Basque language). Singer Esmé and bass player Jean-Marc (formerly in Déjà Mort) joined the troop and they joyfully recorded this 7 song demo, with lyrics in English but for "Des chiens", in 2017 which they self-released in true DIY fashion and therefore had to distribute themselves which must have been a pain in the arse.

Although not getting any discount on the tape myself, Fosse Commune were a generous band with about 14 minutes of noisy d-beat to gift the world. Had they been American, they would have released it on Lp and embarked on a two week European tour with five different shirt designs. The idea was basic and simple enough, nothing revolutionary was undertaken and Fosse Commune, in the grand Distory, could be characterized as pleasingly unoriginal and tastefully unimaginative. From a national perspective however, the creative intent that drove the band was precisely the opposite. Indeed, playing Disaster-styled d-beat hardcore with a Disclose-styled guitar sound in the landscape of French punk music sounds like a near-impossibility, a conceptual aberration, something that can barely be imagined. What would Les Béruriers Noirs think? So while Fosse Commune would have been a delicious non-event in South-East Asia, Spain or the States - albeit one that I would undeniably celebrate - its national uniqueness cannot be understated, as obscure and brief the band might have been.

Dis chats?

Guitar hero Jesse confessed that the project was to use the songwriting of Disaster and apply a layer of Kawakami. This adventurous endeavour had already been touched upon by Deadlock from Japan, who similarly relied heavily on Disaster's slower d-beat drumming - what I call "jogging d-beat" - but don't know that Fosse Commune really thought about them in the writing process. Simple, heavy and distorted riffs the sound of which required about 15 pedals (it probably would have been easier to just plug the guitar into a rusty tumble dryer), some "just like Disaster" transitions and overall a well-executed primitive d-beat pace with a solid sound that fits what they were trying to do and their devotion to the subgenre's tenets. The band's originality - a rarefied realm in this genre - cannot be said to be immeasurable but does exist with Esmé's direct and raspy vocals whose flow and texture are reminiscent of 90's crusty anarchopunk (Lost World or Fleas and Lice at times?) rather than d-beat strictness. As mentioned earlier in the series with Atentado's Ep, female vocalists are few and far between in the cult of Discharge replicas so that it always sounds like a breath of suffocating yet fresh air.

This is a humble but solid demo tape that will undeniably ravish d-beat raw punk sectarians and repel wankers who equate hardcore music with wannabe New York bodybuilders but I believe that Fosse Commune, for its simplicity and groove, can also be enjoyed by the casual hardcore punk fan. I wish the band were able to record an Ep but it was not to be. The one minor flaw of the tape might be the artwork - which I can enjoy - as it is unclear to me what the band wanted to achieve with the lack of references to their extremely referential sound. But maybe I'm just a bit think, innit?

Fosse Commune       

Last Nigh a D-Beat Saved My Life (part 8): DISEASE "Neverending War Crimes" 12" Ep, 2016

This one you could probably see coming. Not that I was exactly contractually obliged to include Disease in Last Night a D-Beat Saved My Life, but let's say there would have been potentially lethal consequences including the revelation that I once owned skacore albums back in the mid-90's, the names of which are best forsaken to the realm of eternal darkness. Hard stuff that might induce mental stupor and leave the listener's psychic balance into a state of disrepair. So as you see, what choice did I really have?

I have been a Disease believer for quite a while now and I strongly recommend you read the great interview I did with Alex a few years ago called At Ease With the Dis. I have grown to love the band's pious and solemn love for the d-beat philosophy and their fervent tenacity to explore, again and again, ways to express their adoration for Disclose and the significance of keeping their legacy alive for the very concept behind it (beside the pleasure to play distorted hardcore music, of course). Disease is a total d-beat band striving to embrace all the characteristics that could be approached the same way as Dispose - already tackled in this series - who have been an influence on the Macedonians (although the latter have certainly proved to be more prolific in the last years). 

Their Disclose worship appears to be both the means and the end. They undeniably belong in the die-hards category that I found impressive and intriguing; inspirational too; heroic definitelu; quixotic almost. Like the endless repetition that defines d-beat music, d-beat as worship and system of references cannot know an end and will never reach a conclusion like the tragic, very real wars destroying the world. It is an unstoppable train running on passion and precision, a deceptively simple clock powering itself, a timeless compass always pointing in the same direction, a story meaningfully repeating its own plot through a single beat and breath.

Damn I'm feeling smart today. Neverending War Crimes stands as the record that, in my opinion, saw them fall in the "great d-beat band" category, a position they have further cemented since. It showcases the band's strength, especially the relentlessness they manage to infuse their music with. The hard-hitting drumming and the crispy distortion targeting the evergrowing audience of Disclose fanatics really work. I like how upfront and primal the vocals sound like, with neither effects nor filters (I have said it before but too many bands opt for drowning their voice in reverbs which might attenuate the sonic aggression), and how fast and intense the record is, with only "Why must we?" slowing things down a bit with a rather odd pace. As prophets of the Disclose cosmogony on a mission to spread the Word, Disease tend to work on different moments of Kawakami's inspirational journey and Neverending War Crimes is all about Disclose's faster "Swedish period", namely the mid-90's (Tragedy and of course The Great Swedish Feast) back when cavekäng bands like Shitlickers were still significant influences and it is obviously no coincidence if Disease also display a crude "dislickers" feel here that highlights the brutality and "wall of noise" effect that won't fail to discourage and disincentivize posers craving to boast the d-beat raw punk costume.

As a point of entry, this record - released through Rawmantic Disasters, Black Against Night, Crucificados Pelo Sistema and Grind Your Mind - will prove difficult to listen to for the inexperts as the music might make them feel like they are besieged by a noise plague. However, d-beat raw punk lovers must see them standing at the top of the pile, a feat not to be discarded, not just because of the harsh albeit friendly competition, but because hailing from Skopje it is significantly harder to tour in Western Europe than for Swedes. In the end this 11 minute long 12" Ep will delight Tragedy fanatics but the disbones-era believers will enjoy the wonderful Death Is Inevitable 2020 Lp more. Both sides have been reported to be at peace with each other but you never know what the future holds. Is a d-beat schism to be?

Neverending D-Beat Crimes